Author 




Title 



Imprint. 



16— 47372-2 WO 



fHE PRESENT CRISIS 



By EDWIN D. MEAD 



Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; 

Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, 

Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, 

And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. 

■ Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand. 
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land.' 
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet . . amid the market's din 
List the ominous stem whisper from the Delphic cave within.— 
iThey enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin? ' 



FROM ANTI-IMPERIALIST LE 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 



BOSTON 

Geo. H. Ellis, Publisher, 272 Congress Street 

1899 



e 5 Cents. 100 Copies, $3.00. 



ORGANIZE THE WORLD. 




KANT'S -ETERNAL PEACE!' 




CHARLES SUMNER'S MORE EXCEL- 




LENT WAY. . 




By Edwin D. Mead. Three Tracts in behalf of 




permanent peace. 3 cents per copy, $1.50 per 




hundred copies, $10 per thousand. Peace Crusade 




Committee, I Beacon Street, Boston. 





M^l 






THE PRESENT CRISIS.* 



By Edzvin D. Mead. 



IT is imperative for a nation, as it is 
for a man, when it finds itself in a 
complex situation, with endless dis- 
cussions of this and that raging in its 
ears, to determine rightly what is the 
important thing. This nation is to- 
day in such a situation. The last year 
has been one of the most congested 
years in our history. We have been 
compelled, month after month, to deal 
with combinations of circumstances 
such as we never dreamed of before. 
Dramatic and pregnant events have 
occurred so rapidly that it has been 
hard for our mental operations to keep 
up with them. Imperialism, expan- 
sion, militarism, colonialism, new 
spheres of influence and of trade, po- 
litical competence, the rights and rela- 
tions of races and a dozen other mo- 
mentous subjects have been clamoring 
every day for discussion and practical 
settlement by this great democratic 
lyceum ; and it is not strange that 
good people have been confused. 

We are of those who believe that 
this nation is essentially a nation of 
good people. Like every other na- 
tion, it is very full of sinners, and 
many of the sinners are in high places, 
where they can blow loud blasts and 
pull strong ropes and often exercise 
the determining influence ; but noth- 
ing shall shake us from the conviction 
that the great majority of men in this 
republic desire to know the truth and 
to do the right, and that if they do 
not do the right thing it is because 
they do not know the truth or see 
clearly what is the most important 
question. 

The American people decreed the 
war with Spain for the liberation 
of Cuba upon as high and noble 

• A large part of this paper was printed in the Editor's 
Table of the New England Magazine, July, 1899. 



an impulse as ever moved a na- 
tion to war. We speak simply of the 
main impulse, for very bad impulses 
were mixed with it. We believe, as 
the President and the Secretary of 
State and our minister to Spain be- 
lieved, that the war was utterly unnec- 
essary and that everything desirable 
could have been achieved without it ; 
we believe that the American people, 
if they could have kept cool, would 
have concluded the same ; the sin of 
jingo politicians and hucksters in 
keeping them hot — a sin more than 
two years old — was flagrant ; and New 
York newspapers had only too much 
ground for boasting that it was "their 
war." But newspapers and huck- 
sters and politicans would all have 
labored in vain but for the deep sense 
of the American people that frightful 
tyrannies and atrocities were being 
perpetrated in Cuba, and that it was 
their duty, as a neighbor and a 
stronger brother, to lend a hand and 
stop it. It was their duty ; and so far 
as that motive was determining 
among the mixed motives which 
brought on the war with Spain, so far 
that war helped every people to feel 
more keenly that they are their 
brothers' keepers and to hasten the 
day when Bulgarian and Armenian 
and Cuban horrors will be impossible 
in a related and responsible world. 
The war was wrong because there 
was a better way. We state again 
our position upon the war with 
Spain, as we proceed to discuss the 
present war with the Filipinos, in 
which the nation has reversed its role 
and turned itself from liberator into 
subjugator, for the sake of doing 
fullest justice to the motives of the 
people in the earlier conflict. But we 
also do it for the sake of saying that 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



although, since this is a government 
of the people, the people themselves 
are responsible in the present crisis, 
and to them criticism is to be ad- 
dressed, we firmly believe that when 
the issues are comprehended by them 
truly they will decree that the war 
upon the people of the Philippines 
shall cease. This is our feeling about 
the intelligence and honor of the 
American people. 

* 

* * 

The important question at the pres- 
ent time is not the question of expan- 
sion. We certainly do not need to 
expand. Any man who told us a year 
ago that we needed more territory 
would have been laughed at. The de- 
sire for more territory for the mere 
sake of more territory, on the part of 
the United States, is like the hunger 
of the farmer for more land when he 
is not able to cultivate properly what 
he already has. No man of common 
sense can believe that a hundred mil- 
lion dollars put into the Philippines 
would yield half the returns of the 
same millions put into Oregon or 
Texas ; we do not ourselves believe 
that they would yield the Boston or 
New York capitalists the returns of 
the same millions put into Maine. New 
Hampshire or Vermont. The possi- 
ble profits which may accrue to a few 
syndicates from operations in the Phil- 
ippines cannot in a century equal the 
expense which must be borne, not by 
the syndicates, but by the whole peo- 
ple, to maintain there an adequate 
military establishment to support 
those operations and keep the natives 
in subjection. No fallacy is more fal- 
lacious nor more pestilent than the 
fallacy that in order to trade with a 
people you have got to govern them — 
the fallacy that trade follows the flag. 
Trade has nothing to do with the flag 
— or next to nothing to do with it. 
If we owned the whole of South 
America, w r e should not begin to have 
the trade with her which we have with 
Europe. Did we have to "conquer" 
Russia, in order to sell her steel 



rails? If there were no wall of 
tariff, New England and New York 
would trade with Canada as freely as 
with Pennsylvania. If trade with 
China and the Philippines is what we 
want, all that we have to do is to send 
to their markets what their people 
need. If this be done at lower prices 
than what England, France and Ger- 
many do it for, then we shall get the 
trade ; and the fewer battleships we 
show, the more we shall be liked, the 
more we shall be trusted, and the bet- 
ter we shall get on. Benjamin Frank- 
lin said a good thing in the last cen- 
tury when, speaking of Great Britain's 
foolish trade policy toward her colo- 
nies, he said: "No tradesman out of 
Bedlam ever thought of increasing 
the number of his customers by 
knocking them in the head, or of en- 
abling them to pay their debts by 
burning their houses." 

The Hon. John Barrett, late min- 
ister of the United States to Siam, gave 
an address before the Boston Cham- 
ber of Commerce in June, on "Amer- 
ica's Interests in the Far East." Mr. 
Barrett, earlier in the year, had paid 
high tribute to Aguinaldo and the 
political capacity of the Philippine 
people, especially emphasizing our 
obligations to them for their assist- 
ance in the capture of Manila. He 
had warned us against the policy of 
ingratitude and violence upon which 
we have since entered — "a most un- 
happy conflict," he foretold, "which 
would mean the loss of hundreds of 
good lives, the expenditure of large 
sums of money, and the development 
of a feeling of hatred and revenge to- 
ward Americans which the kind treat- 
ment of a hundred years cannot re- 
move." Mr. Barrett, in addressing 
the Chamber of Commerce, carefully 
steered clear of the morals of the sit- 
uation against which he had sounded 
warning. "In regard to the Philip- 
pines," he said, "I speak from the 
commercial and not from a moral 
standpoint." His address was an ex- 
travagant painting of the commercial 
advantages of an aggressive policy in 






THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



the East, saying much that was true 
and much that was not true. Every 
real advantage pointed out could be 
vastly better secured by a policy of 
simple fraternity than by conquest 
and slaughter. The unrealities of the 
address were keenly exposed by Mr. 
Atkinson in the Boston Herald. The 
habit of men to look far afield for op- 
portunity when there is far better op- 
portunity at their own doors was 
thus touched: 

"There are several areas of very sparsely 
occupied territory within the limits of the 
United States open to the labor of white 
men as the Philippines are not. in which, 
taken in the aggregate, $500,000,000 of 
American capital will be required every 
year for the next twenty-five years for even 
the partial development of greater values, 
greater variety and greater quantity in 
minerals, timber and agriculture than are 
within the remotest possibility of develop- 
ment in the Philippines in the next cen- 
tury. The central or mountain section of 
the South, including the Piedmont and 
Cumberland plateaus, now sparsely occu- 
pied and only beginning to develop, is 
greater in area than the whole of the 
Philippine Islands, Cuba and Porto Rico 
combined, and offers safer, surer oppor- 
tunities for the investment of capital than 
either of these islands, especially the Phil- 
ippine group, can ever offer. Texas alone 
can take up $500,000,000 capital in one 
year, whenever her legislators protect 
creditors on even terms with debtors. 
Why divert American capital into the 
tropics, where American labor cannot go, 
when these vast home fields for American 
labor are open to both?" 

The same consideration had been 
urged, supported by striking statis- 
tics, by Mr. J. Russell Smith, in his 
article on "The Philippine Islands 
and American Capital," in the June 
number of the Popular Science 
Monthly. And with reference to 
tropical products, Mr. Smith shows 
the vastly stronger claims of the West 
Indies upon us, if it is a business 
question that we are discussing. 

"The inhabitants of the West Indies and 
Central America are idle for lack of em- 
ployment: they will respond to our capital. 
The United States is the natural market 
for the West Indies; they lie close to our 
shores, and when the Nicaragua Canal 



comes they will be but islands in an Amer- 
ican lake — parts of the industrial unit of 
Greater America. They can give us the 
things that are needed to round out our 
consumption, and we can do the same for 
them. It is illogical and unlike American 
shrewdness to go seven thousand miles for 
tropic lands when an equally valuable, a 
more valuable, area is within seven hun- 
dred miles of us. The comparison be- 
comes even more striking when it is re- 
membered that the control of the Philip- 
pines brings to us a burden of problems 
from which industrial development in this 
country is free." 

Above all, let the plain people of 
America remember always that 
whether or not there are peculiar 
profits from commercial ventures in 
the Philippines, for which ventures, 
under the present policy, they are 
asked to provide the armies and 
navies and taxes, there are no profits 
for them ; they have only to do the 
fighting and dying and paying. This 
point is thus strikingly stated by 1 
student of eastern commerce in Ore- 
gon, quoted by Mr. Atkinson: 

"In all the years of Britain's occupation 
of India she has not given one day's labor 
to a white laborer in India. Not one 
home has been made by a British immi- 
grant, and the only white population of 
India is the civil service and the military 
service. The British capitalist and the 
British nobility reap the profit of coolie 
labor. The sons of the poor go out and 
do the fighting. In the Hong Kong dock 
yards are 8,000 laborers, every one Asi- 
atic. They are governed by six over- 
seers-in-chief. Holland. in colonizing 
Java and the Straits Settlements, has not 
given to a Dutch laborer one day's labor. 
There is not a white man's farm or settle- 
ment in any of the islands. They are 
worked by the native Asiatic population 
for the benefit of the home capitalists, and 
are governed in Java by sixteen local gov- 
ernors at large salaries. There is no place 
for the poor and ambitious young white 
man except as manager for the companies 
who work the coffee and sugar planta- 
tion-., mt as a member of the civil service, 
appointed by the home government. The 
Philippines, like Hawaii, are filled with a 
native population, only the Filipinos are 
industrious and docile. There is no 
chance for a white man to compete with 
them in their own homes and in that 
climate. What the Philippines do offer is 
a tremendous chance for capitalists and 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



corporations to acquire great plantations 
and work them with the cheap native 
labor, and for the politicians to enlarge 
their field of spoils and fill the places with 
carpet-bag henchmen. The army and navy 
will be greatly increased; the patronage 
and power of the politicians will be in- 
creased; but if the plain American citizen 
is to be bettered in his condition, or made 
more free in his liberty, let some one point 
out how this is to be done. He may go 
out to die in uniform, protecting the inter- 
ests of the capitalists, but there is no other 
opening for him." 

We urge these considerations not 
for the sake of discouraging any legit- 
imate Pacific commerce or enterprise 
— that would indeed be poor business 
for New England blood — but to prick 
some of the bubbles which in this exi- 
gency, as in every similar exigency, 
men blow, seeking by foreign diver- 
sions to escape or postpone the re- 
sponsibility for just and efficient in- 
dustrial organization. 

But when this is said, we repeat 
what we have said before in the mag- 
azine and said very often elsewhere, 
that we have no dread of any expan- 
sion of the republic for which there is 
any natural or sufficient reason. The 
proper limits of expansion for any na- 
tion, as we said a year ago, are hard 
to define; the sagacious practical 
statesmanship of each time has got to 
determine them for that time as best 
it can. Each push of our own — to the 
Mississippi, the Rocky Mountains, the 
Pacific, Alaska — has been through 
controversy. Geographically there is 
no reason why we should taboo 
islands — why we should take in Alas- 
ka and refuse to take in Cuba and 
Hawaii ; such reasons as there once 
were cease to exist. "Great empires 
commonly die of indigestion," Napo- 
leon said, and said truly; and Glad- 
stone has warned England of the in- 
digestion which has already attacked 
her and is weakening her to-day. But 
great and small are relative terms. 
The French philosophers of the last 
century believed that republics must 
always be small, that large republics 
never could be strong and stable, be- 
cause public spirit and opinion could 



not make themselves felt freshly and 
unitedly over great areas ; but this was 
because they could not foresee those 
means of communication and relation 
which have made our United States 
smaller for political purposes than the 
dozen states along the Atlantic coast 
which elected George Washington 
president. North America will be 
smaller for such purposes a genera- 
tion hence than the United States to- 
day ; and we are of those who believe 
that this republic will in due time be 
co-extensive with North America. 
With the victory of Wolfe at Quebec, 
says Green, the English historian, 
with true discernment, began the his- 
tory of the United States ; and Quebec 
will by and by be a happy city in the 
United States, finding there its natural 
place. Until it does find its place 
there happily and naturally, of its own 
free will, we do not want it there at 
all. Until then — for we have no fears, 
either, of adjacent islands, archipela- 
goes of them, on the basis of a "square 
deal" — we do not want San Salvador, 
where Spain first stepped ashore, nor 
Cuba nor Porto Rico, where her flag 
last flew. "Expansion" for expan- 
sion's sake, the thirst for conquest by 
a nation suddenly made drunk and 
heady by startling and sensational 
military successes, national highway 
robbery, are things for every sober 
man to set the seal of his damnation 
on, as the temptations to public sin 
and the sure ways to national disaster 
and doom. 



It is not a question of "world 
power" and world influence, with 
which we have to do. If it were that, 
as some very noisy people seem 
suddenly to have discovered, then 
it would be important to remind all 
troubled souls that "world power" does 
not depend in the least upon the num- 
ber of square miles in the national do- 
main. If it is a question of intellectual 
or spiritual influence, Palestine and 
Greece were small tracts compared 
with Tartary and Turkey. If it is a 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



question of commercial power, which 
is what the Philistines are really 
thinking about nowadays when they 
talk of world power, then Venice 
was just a city ; Holland, which suc- 
ceeded her in commercial supremacy, 
was at the height of her power almost 
the smallest country in Europe; and 
Britannia, who now rules the wave, is 
smaller than Oregon. The student 
who does not know may be surprised 
to learn how little of her commerce, 
even with her colonies, depends upon 
any political dominance or connec- 
tion. How much greater would her 
commerce with ourselves be to-mor- 
row if we put a prayer for the Queen 
into our prayer-books in the place of 
the prayer for the President? If, as 
Gladstone predicted, we supplant her 
some day as the world's chief carrier, 
we shall not do it because we supplant 
her in formal sovereignty over her 
present colonial possessions or be- 
cause of sovereignty over any new 
possessions, but simply because of su- 
perior enterprise and efficiency. 

It is only because of superior effi- 
ciency that we can acquire valid 
primacy anywhere in the world's mar- 
kets or become commercially a world 
power. It is ridiculous to say that we 
are not that to-day ; and it is reckless 
to throw away or to trifle with that 
peculiar advantage which most helps 
us to become so in ever higher and 
higher degree. Does America forget 
the eloquence with which John Bright 
used to point out to her this great 
advantage, an advantage which, while 
particularly her own, also, unlike most 
particular advantages, pushed on the 
general progress and welfare of the 
world? America, not burdened by 
taxes for the support of great armies 
and navies, was free to devote all her 
resources and energies to the devel- 
opment of her industries. This gave 
her an incalculable advantage over the 
burdened countries of Europe, an ad- 
vantage which every one of them was 
feeling keenly. Let her maintain this 
advantage in the industrial competi- 
tion, and they would all soon be forced 



to disarmament for sheer economy 
and self-protection. Did not the re- 
cent word of Prince Radziwill, a word 
so nervously explained away, mean 
the same thing? It cannot be that 
America will recklessly abandon a po- 
sition in which she can steadily com- 
mand the world to peace and efficient 
industrial organization, and consent to 
meet old tyrannies on their own terms 
and in their service. She has been a 
preeminently great commercial and 
industrial power during the last gener- 
ation, putting the strain upon com- 
peting nations at the very point where 
strain is to be desired, precisely be- 
cause of that wise and virtuous policy 
which shallow and ambitious adven- 
turers are to-day urging her to aban- 
don. We believe that there is wit 
enough in our great democracy to see 
that the course of wickedness is here 
in the short run the course of weak- 
ness, as in the long run it is always. 

To-day one of the greatest of com- 
mercial powers, her commerce hin- 
dered and confined only by her own 
foolish and barbarous tariff laws, she 
exercises also a political, educational 
and religious influence upon the world 
at large not second to that of any 
other nation. Who shall say how 
much of the growth of democracy and 
liberal institutions in Europe during 
the century has been provoked and 
fostered by her example and by the 
words flying across the sea from the 
millions of struggling men who, com- 
ing thence, have here found liberty 
and opportunity? Sacred, thrice sa- 
cred, the responsibility to keep the 
great republic, whatever she does or 
leaves undone, true to this leavening 
and inspiring task, true to her own 
genius, — the honest incarnation, the 
honest representative and instrument 
of the liberty which enlightens the 
world and whose light the dark world 
still so sadly needs. 

America not a world power? Who 
knows the educational and religious 
history of the Pacific Ocean, of India ♦ 
and China and the isles of the sea, and 
says it? What part of the miraculous 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



renaissance of Japan in the lifetime of 
this generation has been due to Amer- 
ican influence? Would the world's 
old fashion — our new fashion — bom- 
bardment, slaughter, subjugation — 
have effected better results than the 
education, the fraternity, the political 
advice and the political training which 
we gave? Is this record of Japan a 
condemnation of the old method of 
America as a world power, and an 
appeal for gunboats as the better tools 
of civilization? Has Robert College 
on the Bosphorus been so great a 
failure that in our new thirst for world 
power we must reverse the influences 
which it represents? One in high 
place has said, and truly said, that the 
leaders who have given law and lib- 
erty in so high measure to Bulgaria 
in these days are men who learned 
what law and liberty are at Robert 
College. Can as high services be 
chronicled of all the fleets of all the 
"powers" which in the same decades 
have darkened the Bosphorus? "I 
remember," wrote an American 
scholar who travelled in the East just 
after the Armenian atrocities, "how in 
Constantinople the English compan- 
ions of our voyage almost winced 
when they came to realize what a shin- 
ing record America, by her schools, 
churches and colleges, had made in 
the last sixty years in the Ottoman 
Empire, set over against the measure- 
less shame and cruel, diabolic selfish- 
ness of the European powers, who 
have been plunging from one depth 
of infamy down into those lowest 
deeps where now all the devils hiss 
and riot and applaud." This Ameri- 
can scholar is John Henry Barrows; 
and the book from which the word is 
taken is "The Christian Conquest of 
Asia." The last chapter of that book, 
"Success of Asiatic Missions; Amer- 
ica's Responsibility to the Orient," is 
a noteworthy picture of American 
educational and religious work in the 
East to-day, and a sharp answer to 
' the man who thinks that America has 
no power or influence in the world at 
large. In everything which consti- 



tutes true and uplifting influence, it 
shows that there is no other power 
equal to hers; and it shows — this is 
the chief thing — that that influence is 
great precisely because it has been 
exercised by the methods of freedom 
instead of the methods of force; be- 
cause the American missionary and 
schoolmaster have not heretofore 
gone out with bayonets and bullets, 
but simply in the panoply of truth and 
love; because they have believed not 
in the Mohammedan method of car- 
rying gospel, but in the Christian 
method; because they have not been 
suspected by those to whom they have 
gone of ulterior motives and of being 
the mere Sancho Panzas of political 
and commercial adventurers. The 
American missionary has often been a 
man with a narrow theology and with 
a poor appreciation of the religious 
history and thought of those to whom 
he went — although this not half so 
often as his disparagers like to be- 
lieve ; but he has been a man of great 
devotion and unselfishness ; and in the 
whole story of modern missions — a 
story not second in glory or in ro- 
mance to the story of the Crusades — 
his part has been the most glorious 
and most important. The man who 
talks about "world power" should ask 
himself whether this kind of power is 
less great, less noble and less real or 
abiding than that represented by Clive 
and Warren Hastings, that dreamed 
of to-dav by Joseph Chamberlain, 
Cecil Rhodes, Whitelaw Reid and 
Charles Denby, and which numbers 
among its brilliant episodes the 
Opium War, the Jameson Raid and 
the slaughter of the Filipinos. 

"I have come back from a voyage 
around the world," wrote Dr. Bar- 
rows, "with a new feeling of the moral 
glory which belongs to our beloved 
land. I met numerous evidences that 
American missionaries have an espe- 
cial advantage over their brethren 
from other nations ;" and his story 
makes it plain that that advantage 
was the absence of ulterior political 
motives and the absence of the sword. 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



"After all," he says, "there is a selfish 
look about much of England's pre- 
dominance in the Orient and in the 
southern waters. England's dealings 
with subject populations, like our 
dealings with the Indians, have some- 
times shocked the. moral sense of man- 
kind. . . . Her domineering ways, 
her fierce jingoism, have kept from 
her the completer confidence which a 
better England would surely have 
gained." He might have put it 
stronger. He might have said with 
the good man who is now writing let- 
ters to the Congrcgationalist from 
Manila to whitewash our wickedness 
in inaugurating a British policy there: 
"England is fiercely hated in the 
Orient. It is beyond a question that 
every educated Hindu is a rebel." 
"Why?" asks this good man. "Be- 
cause England treats India with great 
arrogance. Americans, on the other 
hand," he adds sweetly, "are not arro- 
gant, and are willing to give free, just 
rights to all." 

Two years ago America was not 
represented in the Orient by the 
sword, but only by her better self. 
The American merchant was there, 
and it was pleasant to see him there, 
and to see American trade everywhere 
spreading. "But it is more inspir- 
ing," Dr. Barrows wrote, "to feel the 
presence of American teachers and 
missionaries, bent on relieving the 
human mind from error and on laying 
the foundations of an ethical civiliza- 
tion. Other lands," he said, "are rep- 
resented by the sword. In India, 
Great Britain stands for military 
power and commercial gain, as well 
as for justice, education, progress and 
civilization. Germany is stretching 
out her strong military hand for the 
subjugation of the Pacific Seas. . . . 
France has planted herself on the 
island of Madagascar and on the fer- 
tile lands of Tonquin. The American 
voyager in the East does not see the 
American flag in the harbors of the 
Orient as often as he might wish ; but 
I have found the American name be- 
loved and trusted where other names 



failed to awaken any happy and affec- 
tionate feeling." 

In the two years which have passed, 
things have indeed changed. \\ e, too, 
like the other lands, are now "repre- 
sented in the Orient by the sword;" 
we, too, have come to stand there, 
like Great Britain, for "military power 
and commercial gain" ; we, too, like 
Germany, are "stretching out our 
strong military hand for the subjuga- 
tion of the Pacific Seas" ; our name, 
too, then "beloved and trusted," has 
ceased to "awaken happy and affec- 
tionate feelings." Do we stand 
higher on account of this, or do we 
stand lower? Are we a greater or a 
less "world power"? Is our prospect 
brighter or darker for spreading 
among peoples less fortunate than 
ourselves the truths and sentiments 
which make for freedom, for frater- 
nity, and for the real progress of the 
world? After all, was the old Chris- 
tian way of expansion through honest 
trade and gospel and schoolmaster 
less fruitful and promising than the 
new Mohammedan way of slaughter, 
subjugation and the sword? 



It is not, we say, the question of ex- 
pansion ; it is not the question of 
world power; neither is it the question 
of missionary opportunity. We have 
seen how great and how unique were 
America's missionary opportunity and 
her achievement ; and we have seen 
that this was precisely because her 
missionaries were suspected of no ul- 
terior political motives and bore no 
sword but the sword of the spirit. 
This indeed has been hitherto her 
proudest boast. That the Christian 
way is better than the Mohammedan 
way has been the veriest common- 
place of the missionary convention. 
It fortifies the soul to know that in the 
missionary circle itself it is still the 
boast and commonplace. Ministers 
in pulpits like men in pews have been 
swept off of their feet by the new 
craze for conquest which has swept 
over the nation ; and there have been 



8 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



those who have even defended impe- 
rialism on "missionary principles" 
and applauded the booming cannon as 
the fitting announcement of the 
Prince of Peace. "Give them bullets 
first," said a famous clergyman in 
Boston the other day, speaking of 
our conquest of the Philippines, "and 
Christ afterwards!" — and in words 
less brutal and offensive, but to the 
same purport, a hundred clergymen 
have spoken. But they are all stay- 
at-home clergymen. In the circle of 
the devoted workers themselves, the 
same high word spoken when Amer- 
ica was not "represented by the 
sword" in the Orient is spoken to- 
day. The greatest of American mis- 
sionary organizations, that by far 
most representative of New England, 
is the American Board of Commis- 
sioners for Foreign Missions. Its two 
foreign secretaries are Rev. Judson 
Smith and Rev. James L. Barton. 
Replying publicly to an assertion that 
the men interested in foreign missions 
sympathize with the new American 
imperialism, Dr. Barton recently 
wrote : 

"I know the opinion of a large number 
of the missionaries of our board and of 
others, and I do not know one who is in 
favor of an imperialistic policy. I have 
never heard this policy advocated by the 
officers of our board or of any other. On 
the other hand, I have constantly heard 
the officers and missionaries of the Ameri- 
can Board express regret that the policy 
of imperialism was likely to prevail. 
Hitherto our missionaries have gone to 
the ends of the earth carrying on their 
work, and it has never been charged 
against them that they were the forerun- 
ners of colonies to be planted, which, in 
turn, were to lead to a protectorate from 
the home country, if not annexation. 
Missionaries from England, Germany and 
France have been open to these charges, 
and thereby their influence has been great- 
ly narrowed and their efforts misinter- 
preted, while our own missionaries have 
been entirely unhampered. I think I 
state what would be most generally re- 
ceived by the officers and members of our 
own board when I say we should be most 
loath to ask the extension of an American 
protectorate over any non-Christian coun- 
try on the ground that our missionaries 



would be more free to carry on their 
work. We believe that it would be most 
disastrous to our work to have this step 
taken, for it would be impossible to sepa- 
rate in the minds of the people missionary 
enterprise from government interference." 

The sympathy w^th this point of 
view among the missionaries working 
under the auspices of the American 
Board is, we are informed, almost 
unanimous; and Dr. Barton's word 
has been the occasion of most em- 
phatic expressions of that sympathy. 

A few mornings ago we sat with 
Dr. Judson Smith in his high room, 
close to the sky, above the old Gran- 
ary burial ground, and talked on this 
great question. We wish that every 
citizen of America who indeed loves 
his country and would be true to 
her could see the flash of his clear 
eye and hear the noble irony with 
which he speaks of this new doctrine 
of subjugation instead of invitation as 
the means of spreading Christianity 
and American civilization, the democ- 
racy of Washington and Lincoln. We 
wish that every one could hear his 
burning words, based upon recent 
travels and a lifetime of devoted 
study, upon the character and possi- 
bilities of China — that China in whose 
seizure and partition the President's 
Philippine commissioner has just been 
suggesting that America should take 
a hand, failing in the alternative hold- 
ing of the Philippines. No man com- 
ing down from that watch-tower 
could come with any feeling longer 
that the question of the conquest of 
the Philippines or the subjection of 
any people is the question of mission- 
ary opportunity. 



It is not a question of the com- 
petence of this republic to do any 
work which it ought to do. If there 
is any language more offensive to the 
honest American democrat than the 
language even of the imperialist, it is 
the language of the American pessi- 
mist and unbeliever who answers 
that the proposed policy would be well 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



enough for some other nation, be- 
cause others have the capacity, the 
training and machinery and political 
purity, but that we have not the capac- 
ity and would simply open new flood- 
gates of corruption. First cast the 
beam out of your own eye, they say 
to each proposition that America 
should go beyond herself; and they 
revel in no rhetoric so much as that 
in which they iterate the census of the 
beams in our eyes. They talk of In- 
dians and negroes, of lynchings and* 
lawlessness and Standard Oil, of 
Quay in the Senate and Croker in 
New York. The Indian record is, 
God knows, red enough ; but single 
years of England in Asia and Africa 
have shown a greater sum-total of 
savagery than our whole "century of 
dishonor." The negro record is, God 
knows, black enough ; but the Ameri- 
can people have done more for the 
negro every year since his emancipa- 
tion than the English people in any 
corresponding year for the forty times 
as many poor of India. If there is 
lawlessness in America, America pro- 
poses to end it; if there is mammon- 
ism, she proposes to trample it under 
foot; and she proposes to put both 
Quay and Croker behind prison bars. 
And primarily she believes that no 
law of parsimony rules her soul. If 
some great duty calls her, she will not 
decline it because she sees that she 
has done but poorly this other lesser 
duty or that larger one ; she will turn 
to it as the strong man answers the 
call to heroism, not thinking of his 
failures and his falls, of which in every 
heart there is so long a list, or if 
thinking of them then knowing well 
that every new response to duty 
makes the doing of every duty surer 
and the neglect of any a greater and 
more conscious shame. If America 
has authentic call to new and distant 
responsibilities, then America will 
learn, as England has learned, to keep 
the spoilsman in his place, and she 
will show that she has not one General 
Wood or Colonel Waring, but a hun- 
dred. America refuses to believe that 



a republic has not wisdom or capacity, 
such as kings and kaisers have, for 
dealing with peoples lower than its 
own and for lending them the honest 
hand that shall help them up and on. 
That were a fatal impeachment of 
democracy — an impeachment from 
which, could it be sustained, democ- 
racy could not recover. That were to 
gainsay the first principles of educa- 
tion and of neighborhood, to make 
the half-wise man a better teacher of 
the ignorant than the wise man. If 
the republic cannot stoop without 
danger to its back, if we alone cannot 
take risks for civilization, then are we 
of all men most miserable. 

We are not of those who think that 
Admiral Dewey should have been 
ordered to sail away from Manila har- 
bor the moment he had sunk the 
Spanish fleet. We are of those whose 
blood stirs at the great new visions of 
opportunities for carrying western 
civilization into the Orient. But it is 
western civilization and not western 
wickedness that we want to see enter 
there ; and the great visions make us 
the more jealous that these eastern 
men, men yet in the making, shall be 
treated like brothers, not like brutes. 
We believe that we might easily have 
had the glad fellowship and partner- 
ship of the Filipinos, profitable to 
both, instead of their enmity. We 
have made them hate us ; we might 
have made them love us. We can 
even yet make them love and trust us, 
if we will : but it can onlv be by abso- 
lute abandonment of the policy of 
tyranny and greed, which always 
overreaches itself, and acting like 
men and Christians. 

If our guiding, helping and De- 
tecting band is needed in the Phil- 
ippines, if Cuba needs it, then let us 
freely give it ; and let us know that it 
means danger to our democracy onlv 
when it means danger to theirs! The 
instant that it does mean that, the in- 
stant that it ceases to be the fraternal 
hand and begins to be the grasping 
hand, that instant the gods detect it 
and trip us; that instant some voice 



10 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



is heard in the very midst of our own 
body politic speaking with new bold- 
ness the accent of oppression here, 
sounding the fatal warning that a 
democracy cannot serve two masters. 
When a democracy finds that for this 
task or that it has no natural or proper 
tools, it may not be always true, but 
it is almost always true, that it is not 
a task proper for a democracy nor 
•proper for any men who love liberty 
and are really concerned with the wel- 
fare and progress of their fellow men. 
Our present question, we repeat, is 
not a question of our capacity ; it is 
a question of our duty,— of what we 
ought to do. 



Not a question of expansion, of 
world power, of missionary opportu- 
nity, nor of political capacity; not 
these, but simply this, — whether 
America is to turn from a work like 
that of the "Christian conquest of Asia" 
to a work like the British conquest of 
India; whether military power and 
commercial gain are to become the 
dominant marks and motives of our 
democracy ; whether we are to stretch 
out a military hand for the subjuga- 
tion of the Pacific seas ; whether mili- 
tarism and mammonism are to be al- 
lowed to grow up and determine the 
policies of this republic and finally 
choke its life, as they have choked 
the lives of so many republics in the 
past, or whether they are themselves 
to be checked and choked — and that 
now. It is, in a word, the simple 
question, whether the people of the 
United States love liberty, love it for 
themselves and love it for others; 
whether the republic really stands for 
the advancement of liberty in the 
world or stands for the advancement 
of its own power and gain. "Where 
liberty is," once said Thomas Jeffer- 
son, "there is my country!" — empha- 
sizing his fellowship with every free- 
man. "Where liberty is not," re- 
sponded Thomas Paine, striking a yet 
deeper note, "there is mine!" — em- 



phasizing his fellowship with every 
man and the obligation of the free- 
man to help the whole world up to 
freedom, lhat was the great vision 
and imperative which commanded the 
founders of the American republic, 
and which made its founding an 
epoch-making event in human his- 
tory. 

* * 

That was the inspiration of our 
•great Monroe Doctrine ; for the Mon- 
roe Doctrine was great. The sub- 
stance of the Monroe Doctrine was 
not, as so many like to preach, that 
this world is to be regarded not as one 
sphere, but as two hemispheres. That 
was the accident of the doctrine ; that 
was temporary history. The sub- 
stance of the doctrine was that this 
republic would not permit anywhere 
within the sphere of its natural and 
vital influence anything that was hos- 
tile to the republic and the republican 
idea, anything that made against lib- 
erty in the world, or at least in that 
part of it, that American world, which 
in that year 1823 was within easy 
reach of its republican hand. The 
South American republics might be 
very poor republics ; they might be 
full of rudeness and crudeness and 
confusion and revolution ; but they 
should have their chance ; they should 
be secure in the privilege to make 
their own mistakes and profit by them, 
and in the right through mistakes and 
through slowly multiplying successes 
to struggle upward. That was what 
James Monroe meant, and John 
Quincy Adams, and Thomas Jeffer- 
son. They proposed to keep this re- 
public intact, "uninfected by conta- 
gion" — those are Jefferson's words — 
until it grot its growth and could face 
the world ; and they proposed to see 
that the other American republics had 
the same chance. They therefore 
served notice upon the sovereigns of 
Russia, Prussia and Austria, — that 
"Holy Alliance," whose real object 
was. as the historian well nuts it. "to 
lend a hand wherever possible in sup- 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



pressing republican movements," — 
that they would never suffer Europe 
to intermeddle with affairs on this side 
of the Atlantic. By way of etiquette 
and makeweight they said, "We will 
never entangle ourselves in the broils 
of Europe." But that, we say, was the 
rhetoric and accident of it. They 
talked about America and Europe, 
about this hemisphere and that ; but 
what they were really talking about 
was liberty and tyranny, for which at 
that moment this hemisphere and that 
respectively stood. 

It was true, in high degree, in 1823, 
that there were two hemispheres in 
the political world. But a good many 
things have happened since 1823. 
The world is no longer two hemi- 
spheres ; it is one round world. The 
oceans are no longer barriers, but 
bridges ; and we have no longer any 
interests or obligations in connection 
with Uruguay or Paraguay different 
from what we have toward England, 
Italy, Greece or Japan. Liberty has 
developed faster in Europe during 
the century than in America; and 
England, France and Germany are 
to-day truer republics than Vene- 
zuela^ Chili and Peru, For us to in- 
terfere in boundary disputes between 
England and Venezuela is ' vastly 
more absurd than interference in dis- 
putes between Venezuela and Brazil. 
Our responsible relations with Europe 
and with all the world multiply daily ; 
and to-morrow our duty to help police 
Armenia, if in Armenia there is devil- 
try, will be as great as England's 
duty; to-morrow our duty will be, if 
England or Germany or France 
wishes, without injustice or wrong to 
others, to plant people within the 
teeming forests and upon the million 
empty acres of South America, to wel- 
come them and lend the helping hand. 

It was reserved for a Boston orator, 
on the Fourth of July, to invoke the 
Monroe Doctrine as something that 
we might extend to Asia as a sanction 
for preventing European nations 
from monopolizing the "spoils" of 
China and for standing out for an 



equal share ourselves, if it comes to a 
partition, enforcing that policy "by 
the establishment of colonies and 
naval stations and, if necessary, by 
armed intervention." Is it not within 
the memory of men now living that 
the partition of Poland by the pro- 
spective "Holy Alliance" was spoken 
of as a crime, even to children in the 
schools ; and is it on record that Prus- 
sia was exonerated for her part in it 
because Russia and Austria also took 
part? 

The test of the American statesman 
is his power to interpret the Monroe 
Doctrine in the light of to-day, and 
to see which part of it is accident and 
which eternal truth ; to determine 
whether he will appeal to it to make 
himself a "dog in the manger" and 
whether, when he chooses to go out- 
side of his own hemisphere, it shall 
be for the sake of proclaiming liberty 
and helping men struggling for inde- 
pendence and a freer life, or for the 
sake of joining some unholy alliance 
in the work of "partitioning" other 
people's lands and of lending a hand 
in "suppressing republican move- 
ments." 

* 
* * 

A century ago our fathers brought 
forth upon this continent a new na- 
tion/ conceived in liberty and dedi- 
cated to the proposition that all men 
— not simply all Americans — are cre- 
ated equal, are God's children and to 
be treated everywhere and always as 
God's children. Now we are en- 
gaged in testing whether that nation, 
or any nation so conceived and so 
dedicated, can endure in the high ser- 
vice of that truth, or whether our 
great pioneering work for freedom is 
to take the second place, and the new 
standard raised a hundred years ago 
to duck itself before those hoary old 
standards of military power and com- 
mercial greed at whose fatal reappear- 
ance the hearts of hopeful men have 
again and*again grown sick and na- 
tions called by God to leadership and , 



12 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



high emprise again and again decayed 
and died. 

We are doing no new thing, men 
plead. England again and again has 
done it, and England was never so 
strong as to-day. Yes, again and 
again England has done it, and Eng- 
land is yet strong; but Rome did it 
oftener than England, and Rome was 
stronger than England, — and the 
present officials of the Roman Empire 
are not catalogued in this year's 
Gotha Almanac. Two years ago 
every American said Amen as Glad- 
stone showed how all this was Eng- 
land's weakness, not her strength ; 
and Gladstone's friend and biog- 
rapher, John Morley, writing yester- 
day the programme of one of Eng- 
land's latest enterprises, wrote our 
programme too: 

"First, you push on into territories 
where you have no business to be, and 
where you had promised not to go: sec- 
ondly, your intrusion provokes resent- 
ment, and, in these wild countries, resent- 
ment means resistance; thirdly, you in- 
stantly cry out that the people are rebel- 
lious and that their act is rebellion (this 
in spite of your own assurance that you 
have no intention of setting up a perma- 
nent sovereignty over them); fourthly, 
you send a force to stamp out the rebel- 
lion; and, fifthly, having spread bloodshed, 
confusion and anarchy, you declare, with 
hands uplifted to the heavens, that moral 
reasons force you to stay, for if you were 
to leave, this territory would be left in a 
condition which no civilized power could 
contemplate with equanimity or com- 
posure. These are the five stages in the 
Forward Rake's progress." 



Commerce is the great civilizer, the 
great sapper and miner for progress, 
the great stimulator and minister of 
men. "Theworld was made for honest 
trade," sings Emerson ; and the heart 
of every strong man in Emerson's 
America swells and exults to see the 
busy railroads multiply upon the land 
and the ships upon the sea. Free 
trade with all the world is the desire 
of civilization in all lands. But com- 
merce has its place, and its place is 
second, and not first ; it is the servant, 



not the king, of worthy nations and of 
worthy men. When it becomes king, 
then the man and the nation cease to 
be worthy and to be the salt and the 
light of the world. 

"And where they went on trade intent, 

They did what freemen can; 
Their dauntless ways did all men praise; 
The merchant was a man." 

This is the picture of the merchants 
whom New England loves to praise. 
When the merchant is only the mer- 
chant, when he does what freemen 
may not do, when he makes his trade 
subversive of freedom itself, then his 
trade becomes a curse and not a bless- 
ing. 

"For what avail the plough or sail 
Or land or life, if freedom fail?" 

The baleful definition and the threat 
of the present crisis is the word, Com- 
merce is king. The interests of free- 
dom are subordinated to the interests 
of trade. Decadent and anaemic men 
talk of our seizure and subjugation of 
the Philippines for philanthropic and 
missionary purposes ; but Mr. Frye 
and Mr. Reid and Mr. Davis talk of 
indemnity and China trade. The 
President's Philippine commissioner, 
Mr. Denby, believes in holding the 
Philippines only because he "cannot 
conceive of any alternative to our 
doing so except the seizure of terri- 
tory in China." He scouts the pious 
sentimentalists. If the conquest of 
the Philippines will not help us to en- 
large our markets, then "set them free 
to-morrow, and let their people, if 
they please, cut each other's throats." 
There is nothing in the present situ- 
ation more melancholy than the easy 
acceptance of Mr. Denby as the rep- 
resentative of the national policy in 
the Philippines, and the general in- 
difference to the ideals and ambitions 
which through him dominate our op- 
erations there. For Mr. Denby, our 
former minister to China, a zealous 
student of Oriental trade and politics, 
is the real head and hand of the Presi- 
dent's commission, the only man of 
political,_^diplomatic . or commercial 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



fi 



experience, the man of purpose and of 
power, the man who will settle the 
commission's policy and was chosen 
for that purpose. Were the people of 
the republic alive as they ought to be 
to their vital interests and their honor, 
they would learn by heart the words 
which commended this man to the 
government as the fittest instrument 
for its work in the Philippines. In 
truth, how many remember well those 
words, uttered only seven months 
ago? Here are a few of them: 

"We have become a great people. We 
have a great commerce to take care of. 
We have to compete with the commercial 
nations of the world in far-distant 
markets. Commerce, not politics, is king. 
The manufacturer and the merchant dic- 
tate to diplomacy and control elections. 
The art of arts is the extension of com- 
mercial relations — in plain language, the 
selling of native products and manufac- 
tured goods. I learned what I know of 
diplomacy in a severe school. I found 
among my colleagues not the least hesi- 
tation in proposing to their respective 
governments to do anything which was 
supposed to be conducive to their inter- 
ests. There can be no other rule for the 
government of all persons who are 
charged with the conduct of affairs than 
the promotion of the welfare of their re- 
spective countries. . . . 

"We have the right as conquerors to 
hold the Philippines. We have the right 
to hold them as part payment of a war in- 
demnity. This policy may be character- 
ized as mnjust to Spain, but it is the re- 
sult of the fortunes of war. All nations 
recognize that the conqueror may dictate 
the terms of peace. I am in favor of hold- 
ing the Philippines, beacuse I cannot con- 
ceive of any alternative to our doing so, 
except the seizure of territory in China, . . . 
and I prefer to hold them rather than to 
oppress further the helpless government 
and people of China. I want China to 
preserve her autonomy, to become great 
and prosperous; and I want these results 
not for the interests of China, but for our 
interests. I am not the agent or attorney 
of China: and, as an American. I do not 
look to the promotion of China's interests, 
or Spain's, or ny other country's, but 
simply of our own. The whole world sees 
in China a splendid market for our native 
products — our timber, our locomotives, 
our rails, our coal oil. our sheetings, our 
mining plants and numberless other 
things. . . . 

"Dewey's victory is an epoch in the af- 
fairs of the far East. We hold our heads 



higher. We are coming to our own. We 
are stretching out our hands for what 
nature meant should be ours. We- are 
taking our proper rank among the na- 
tions of the world. We are after markets, 
the greatest markets now existing in the 
world." (Article in the Forum, November, 
1898.) 

Three months later, Mr. Denby re- 
peated this preaching in its crassest 
form: 

"The cold, hard, practical question 
alone remains: Will the possession of 
these islands benefit us as a nation? If it 
will not, set them free to-morrow, and let 
their people, if they please, cut each 
other's throats, or play what pranks they 
please. To this complexion we must 
come at last, that, unless it is beneficial 
for us to hold these islands, we should 
turn them loose." (Forum, February, 
1899.) 

Crasser, more grasping and more 
brutal still were the words of the 
President's commissioner in the inter- 
views published in the San Francisco 
newspapers on the eve of his sailing; 
and the newspapers of latest date 
bring the advices of the Denby inter- 
est in the great American syndicate 
which is already laying out railroads 
in China — that China whose conquest 
and partition, as we have remarked, 
the ex-minister proposes, failing the 
alternative holding of the Philippines. 
But yesterday we read its representa- 
tives were in Washington urging the 
administration to "back up" its de- 
mands upon the Chinese government, 
making the republic a partner to en- 
forcing concessions from an unwilling 
but helpless people. 

Honest Tom Reed, whom New 
England loves, and who has chosen 
to leave public life while present poli- 
cies obtain, once in his heat, we have 
been told, dubbed the administration 
a "syndicated administration." It is 
not strange that many said it was 
a harsh word ; but it would be 
strange and it would be melan- 
choly if any man, whatever his party, 
any man save him who believes that 
indeed "commerce is king" and 
ought to be, ought to "control elec- 



14 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



tions," "dictate to diplomacy," and 
direct the dogs of war, should feel 
that even Mr. Reed could find too 
harsh a term for the proposals and 
the purposes of the politician sent to 
represent and help determine the 
policy in the East of the republic of 
Washington and Lincoln. 

But why do we lay stress on Mr. 
Denby? There is nothing unusual in 
his position, that it should be re- 
marked upon ; the brutality of the ex- 
pression of it is all that is unusual. It 
is the position of thousands. The po- 
sition is that of Mr. Barrett before the 
Boston Chamber of Commerce, — who 
in the intoxication of his vision of 
China trade had no word of mercy, 
but only deprecation of mercy, for the 
struggling Filipinos whose virtues he 
had himself not half a year before 
painted so brightly. Tyranny, slaugh- 
ter and falseness to democracy were 
not even remembered when balanced 
against China trade. They were not 
remembered in the Fourth of July 
oration in Boston. 

We are not here arraigning the 
American people. We believe in the 
American people, and believe that, 
with time for thought and second 
breath, they will repudiate the present 
policy upon the first possible occasion. 
Our desire is to help arouse the Amer- 
ican people to the real character and 
purpose and to the natural results of 
what is being done in their name and 
with their sanction. The policy we 
arraign ; and the inspiration of it, the 
determiner of it, the silent force, the 
administrator of administrations, is an 
imperious commercial greed, which 
has no thought of justice nor of the 
lives and liberties of men. 



It is this absorbing and merciless 
commercialism which has betrayed us 
into the militarism and indifference to 
the rights and aspirations of men 
lower than ourselves struggling for 
freedom, which two years ago or one 
year ago we should all have united to 



decry, and which, in any other nation, 
we should all decry to-day. For none 
of us surely in cool blood can doubt 
what we would say were England, 
Germany or Russia acting our part in 
the Philippines,— had either of these 
powers taken the islands as indemnity 
at a time when their people, after 
years of oppression and heroic resist- 
ance, had almost achieved success 
and independence, and then, refusing 
even to discuss with them, proposing 
to them the sole alternative of un- 
questioning submission or "ruin," 
dubbing them "rebels" when they had 
never owed allegiance and the only 
claim to their allegiance was that of 
conquest or purchase — there is no 
doubt, we say, what America would 
have said to England or Germany 
playing this part. Should we have 
thought worse of the Philippine 
people, or better, for resisting to the 
death in such a situation? Should we 
not have said that their resistance was 
the best proof of their character and 
of their right to a chance? Certainly 
we should have said it ; it is a menace 
to our freedom, it is a menace to our 
souls, for any of us to say that we 
should not have said it. If some 
Under Foreign Secretary had replied 
to an interpellation in the House of 
Commons, that the purpose of the 
government was simply to train these 
people rightly to self-government, 
America would have reminded Eng- 
land that she was destroying the pres- 
tige and power of precisely that body 
of the people which had evinced ca- 
pacity for government, capacity to 
organize and lead, to rise against op- 
pression, to command enthusiasm, to 
command money, to maintain armies, 
and to wage long war against over- 
whelming odds. She would have re- 
minded her that to the disinterested 
and impartial eye her course seemed 
calculated only to make sure her own 
supremacy, not to promote in this 
people self-reliance, self-help, a free 
spirit and a hopeful growth. She 
would have mocked her efforts to 
minimize and vulgarize the struggle 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



15 



by dubbing it a "Tagal riot" or what 
not ; and she would have told her that 
it was more creditable to herself and 
to her armies to recognize that the 
force which proved a match for them 
so long, so successfully and with such 
ever-growing energy was a large 
thing than to label it a little thing, a 
force that had strong popular support 
rather than a force that could give but 
half its attention to the enemy in 
front. 

Let us not juggle with ourselves. 
All that is vital in this unhappy peo- 
ple, all that commands the future, 
all that we should name were the 
case not our own, is animate with the 
passion for liberty and independence. 
The question is not of them ; the ques- 
tion is of us. The question is, how 
has it become possible that the specta- 
cle of such a passion and such a strug- 
gle should fail to stir any American 
heart? How is it possible that this 
democracy, a century after Washing- 
ton, should prostitute itself to the 
mouldy and poisonous doctrine that 
"sovereignty" — sovereignty over un- 
consulted, unconsenting and protest- 
ing millions of men— is something to 
be bought and sold? 

The sole defence or apology, which 
even makes claim to respectability, 
for this assertion of despotism oyer 
our fellow men, refusing political 
conference with them, proposing the 
one tyrannous alternative of unques- 
tioning submission to our pleasure or 
"ruin," is the theory that they are 
"savages," political children. Civ- 
ilized "men are no more under obli- 
gation to consult them about their 
political interests than we are to 
consult our boys and girls about 
going to school. "Government de- 
rives its just powers from the con- 
sent of the governed," truly enough ; 
but that dictum has to do with 
political men, not political chil- 
dren. This theory that the men of 
Luzon are "savages" appears to be 
the theorv of the administration; if 
it is not its policy is without a 
shadow of excuse. The theory is 



ridiculous ; it is iniquitous ; every in- 
formed man knows it is false. The 
books are in the libraries for every 
man to read who cares to know what 
the Philippine people are. But as to 
their political capacity, as to their 
title at least to consultation concern- 
ing their own fate, we need no other 
word than that of Mr. Barrett himself, 
who is now engaged in the fine busi- 
ness of holding Senator Hoar up for 
scorn in chambers of commerce, for 
speaking in the Senate for justice to- 
ward these struggling people. Mr. 
Barrett last autumn visited Malolos, 
where the Philippine congress was in 
session. The hundred men who com- 
posed it, he writes, 

"would compare in behavior, manner, 
dress and education with the average men 
of the better classes of other Asiatic na- 
tions, possiblv including the Japanese. 
These men, whose sessions I repeatedly 
attended, conducted themselves with great 
decorum, and showed a knowledge of de- 
bate and parliamentary law that would not 
compare unfavorably with the Japanese 
parliament. The executive portion of the 
government was made up of a ministry of 
bright men who seemed to understand 
their respective positions. Each general 
division was subdivided with reference to 
practical work. There was a large force 
of under-secretaries and clerks, who ap- 
peared to be kept very busy with routine 
labor." 

We know that a score of the mem- 
bers of this parliament were men who 
had studied in European universities. 
The constitution adopted by this bodv 
is in all our hands, and we are not in 
any manner dependent upon Senator 
Hoar's praises for our judgment of it. 
This government— we have Mr. Bar- 
rett's word for it last January — "has 
practically been administering the 
affairs of that great island since the 
occupation of Manila, and is certainly 
better than the former administra- 
tion." General Miller pays the same 
tribute to the efficiency of the native 
government as he found it at Iloilo; 
and Consul Wildman says: "Aguinal- 
do has made life and property safe, 
preserved order, and encouraged a 
continuation of agricultural and in- 



i6 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



dustrial pursuits. He has made brig-, 
andage and loot impossible, respected 
private property, forbidden excess, 
either in revenge or in the name of the 
State, and made a woman's honor 
safer in Luzon than it has been in 
three hundred years." 

The Filipinos, indeed, have always 
done all the real work of their 
Spanish masters, and all the valuable 
political experience on the island was 
theirs. Even sixty years ago, as 
shown in Gironiere's book, "Twenty 
Years in the Philippine Islands," an 
efficient system of local government, 
resembling in some features the town 
meeting government of New Eng- 
land, was in operation throughout 
Luzon. Every township, he says, 
was a little republic. This strong self- 
reliance and passion for independence 
was what chiefly impressed Dr. Lan- 
man, who has recently come home 
to Boston from Luzon to tell us of 
th? terrible misconception of the 
character of the Philippine people 
upon which it is clear to him our gov- 
ernment is acting. Commander 
Ford, the fleet engineer of the Asiatic 
squadron, who has lately arrived at 
his home in Baltimore, speaks even 
more strongly: 



"The Filipinos pictured in the senti- 
mental papers are not the men we are 
fighting. The fellows we deal with out 
there are not ignorant savages, fighting 
with bows and arrows, but are intelligent, 
liberty-loving people, full of courage and 
determination. The idea that the Filipino 
is an uncivilized being is a mistaken one. 
They have the intellect and the stamina to 
govern themselves, and have done it for 
300 years, although under the rule of 
Spain. They were the clerks, the book- 
keepers, the assessors, and managed the 
entire machinery of government. While 
they fight for entire freedom, all they ask 
is a chance for life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness, and they care not whether it 
be a republic of their own or some form 
devised for them by the United States." 



To the same effect writes General 
Charles A. Whittier, late of General 
Merritt's staff in the Philippines. He 
went to Manila with many of the 



common notions about the Philip- 
pine people. 

"But after a little while, with my 
changed estimate of the Filipino charac- 
ter, seeing their order, industry, frugality, 
temperance, tolerance of danger and fa- 
tigue, and when I reviewed their struggle 
for independence, the brutalities inflicted 
upon them for years by the Spaniards, 
their dignity and skill, it seemed to me 
our duty to use them and our own credit 
and resources in making a great country, 
as I believe it could have been made. I 
felt, and still feel, sure that, with a little 
tact and diplomacy, the people would have 
accepted our protectorate — my idea being 
to intrust them with the administration of 
all the local offices, to admit them to 
subordinate places in our army, by which 
in a short time a force of 5,000 men would 
have been adequate, and, after a fair trial, 
in case they developed a capacity for gov- 
ernment and the devotion to the best in- 
terests of their country (of which I have 
not the slightest doubt), to extend their 
functions; and should have been glad, in 
proper time, to have turned over the whole 
country to them. Such a course would 
have involved no loss of life or of money." 

Here is clearly stated what, in our 
opinion, was our true policy in Janu- 
ary, and remains our true policy to-day 
— the policy which we believe the 
American people, protesting against 
the renewal in the autumn of costly, 
murderous and fruitless war, will im- 
peratively decree. General Whittier 
spoke warmly in behalf of this view 
before the Peace Commission at 
Paris; and he says to-day: 

"I think that the qualities shown by 
Aguinaldo and his people fully justify all 
that I said before the commission. ... I 
don't think there was a necessity for the 
loss of a single life in battle at Manila 
since the first day of May, 1898 — the day of 
Dewey's naval battle — and I grieve every 
day over the new recitals of this wicked 
fighting and its attendant results." 

But do the people of the United 
States ask for any more authoritative 
word upon this subject than 'that of 
Admiral Dewey? On June 23, 1898, 
Admiral Dewey telegraphed to the 
Navy Department at Washington: 
"These people are far superior in 
their intelligence and more capable of 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



17 



self-government than the natives of 
Cuba ; and I am familiar with both 
races." Two months later, August 
29, he referred the Department back 
to this word, and added: "Further in- 
tercourse with them has confirmed 
me in this opinion." 

If our people do ask for more con- 
clusive evidence, then they have it in 
Mr. Barrett's speech to the Boston 
Chamber of Commerce. In that 
speech Air. Barrett said that on the 
day after Mr. Hoar made his great 
speech in the Senate against the poli- 
cy of our government in the Philip- 
pines, he met in the corridor of his 
hotel at Hong Kong one of the resi- 
dent Filipino agents, who had re- 
ceived a telegram from Washington 
giving an abstract of the speech. 
" 'What are you going to do with it?' 
I asked. He replied: T have ordered 
twenty thousand copies to be struck 
off, and I am going to send them to 
Aguinaldo.' I telegraphed to Dewey 
what was going to be done ; but my 
despatch did not reach Manila in 
time, and within twenty-four hours 
after it arrived the Filipino presses 
were working night and day striking 
off copies of the Senator's speech, 
which were circulated all through the 
Philippine Islands." Incidentally Mr. 
Barrett here reveals what at the time 
was hotly denied, that express effort 
was made to keep Senator Hoar's 
speech from reaching the Philippine 
Islands and to prevent the people 
from knowing what American senti- 
ment was. The significant thing is 
his own absolute witness that the men 
for whom Senator Hoar was demand- 
ing justice, demanding some consid- 
eration as to their own fate, were 
worthy of consideration and of his 
great and noble effort. A people for 
whom presses must work night and 
day to strike off copies of Senator 
Hoar's speeches, with the assurance 
that those speeches will be everywhere 
circulated and read and appreciated, 
a people with agencies at home and 
abroad so efficiently organized as im- 
mediately to secure this result, are 



not the race of "savages" with which 
our administration assumes itself to 
be dealing. Among the many things 
which will be remembered to the 
glory of our great Massachusetts sen- 
ator, preeminent among all men in 
public life for his true insight in the 
present crisis from beginning to end, 
it will be remembered, not only that 
he' never forgot what law and liberty 
are and what the American republic 
stands for, not only that he told us of 
the shame to a democracy of traffick- 
ing in "sovereignty" over uncon- 
sulted, silenced millions of men, but 
that he mastered the facts concerning 
the Philippine people and acted upon 
them, while other men manufactured 
and imposed upon the country the- 
ories to match and sanction tyranny. 
Mr. Barrett, like every other intelli- 
gent man who has come into contact 
with him, pays the highest personal 
tribute to Aguinaldo as the universally 
popular leader. Most interesting of 
these many tributes is that by the 
young Filipino, Rodriguez, now liv- 
ing in New Orleans, a former school- 
mate of Aguinaldo's. His picture of 
the serious, student, who "used to 
literally turn day into night" in 
his studies of philosophy and law 
at the San Juan Seminary at 
Manila, but good-hearted, charita- 
ble to the poor, and liked by 
everybody, is the picture of the boy 
who was the natural father of the man 
described by Mr. Barrett. "It was at 
the college that he acquired his pro- 
nounced ideas on republicanism. 
When he was only sixteen years old 
he started a little paper, a boy's paper, 
called La Rcpublica." There was the 
seed of the present struggle for inde- 
pendence. The most touching word 
of this Rodriguez is this: 

"It cannot last a great while. The re- 
sources of the Filipinos are limited, and 
they will become exhausted. They are 
making a terrible mistake; but it is not due 
to wickedness. They are simply ignorant 
of this country, its resources and its pol- 
icy. They imagine that the Americans 
want to drive them away and take their 



iS 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



country. They are not used to dealing 
with honest people. You must remember 
they have never come in contact with any- 
body except the Spaniards." 

Oh, the terrible irony of it! What 
have we done that they should not 
think we wanted to dominate them? 
What have we done to make them feel 
that we were "honest people?" In 
what single point have we shown to 
them our superiority to the Spaniards 
whom we supplanted, — going to them 
with the appeal to fear and not to love, 
refusing even to confer with them as 
political men and brothers, proposing 
to them simply "sovereignty" or 
"ruin," slaughtering more of them in 
four months, when they refused dumb 
submission to such tyranny, than 
Spain had done in four decades ? 

We have noticed Mr. Barrett's 
judgment of Aguinaldo's parliament. 
Here is his picture of Aguinaldo's 
army : 

"The army, however, of Aguinaldo was 
the marvel of his achievements. He had 
over twenty regiments of comparatively 
well-organized, well-drilled, and well- 
dressed soldiers, carrying modern rifles 
and ammunition. I saw many of these 
regiments executing not only regimental, 
but battalion and company drill, with a 
precision that astonished me. Certainly 
as far as dress was concerned, the com- 
parison with the uniform of our soldiers 
was favorable to the Filipinos. They were 
officered largely, except in the higher po- 
sitions, with young men who were ambi- 
tious to win honors and were not merely 
show fighters. The people in all the dif- 
ferent towns took great pride in this army. 
Nearly every family had a father, son, or 
cousin in it. Wherever they went they 
roused enthusiasm for the Filipino cause. 
The impression made upon the inhabitants 
of the interior by such displays can be 
readily appreciated. Aguinaldo and his 
principal lieutenants also made frequent 
visits to the principal towns, and were re- 
ceived with the same earnestness that we 
show in greeting a successful President." 



This "Tagal mob," which we are 
told from Washington in no way rep- 
resents general Philippine sentiment, 
— eighty per cent of the people op- 



posed to it is, we think, Dean Worces- 
ter's guess, a mere fraction sustain- 
ing the successful opposition to the 
armies of the United States! — flocks 
to Aguinaldo's standard, according to 
Mr. Barrett, because "the impression 
went abroad that Aguinaldo had ar- 
rived to establish an independent gov- 
ernment and that the Americans, 
would assist him." What grounds, 
had we given them for that impres- 
sion? 

Consul-General Pratt of Singapore- 
has recently brought suit against cer- 
tain newspapers for publishing "in- 
terviews" with him, which he pro- 
nounces false and injurious. There is. 
one significant newspaper article, 
however, which he will not assail. It is 
an article published in the Singapore 
Free Press of May 4, 1898, which he 
himself forwarded the next day to the- 
State Department as giving "in the- 
main correctly" the facts concerning 
his discussion with Aguinaldo and 
Aguinaldo's departure, after reaching 
an understanding with him, to 
join Commodore Dewey at Manila. 
Aguinaldo, at Consul Pratt's request,, 
had been brought to him for a secret 
interview a few days before by Mr. 
Bray, an English gentleman of high 
standing, who had lived as a mer- 
chant and planter in the Philippines 
for fifteen years, and sympathized 
with the revolutionary movement as 
promising order and welfare for the 
islands. "Being aware of the great 
prestige of General Aguinaldo with 
the insurgents, and that no one could 
exert over them the same influence 
that he could," Consul Pratt writes 
the Department, he arranged this in- 
terview and, coming to an agreement 
with Aguinaldo, secured his passage 
to Manila, for "general cooperation"' 
with Commodore Dewey, as he tele- 
graphed the Commodore, — who, on 
learning the facts, had telegraphed,, 
"Tell Aguinaldo to come as soon as. 
possible." The policy of Aguinaldo,. 
considered and accepted in this inter- 
view, as stated in the account sent the 
Department, "embraces the inde- 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



19 



pendence of the Philippines, whose 
internal affairs would be controlled 
under European and American ad- 
visers. American protection would 
be desirable temporarily, on the same 
lines as that which might be instituted 
hereafter in Cuba." This, we say, 
Consul Pratt will hardly deny. More- 
over, this is one of the things "estab- 
lished by the mouth of two or three 
witnesses," — Mr. Bray, who was 
present at the interview and acted as 
interpreter, having also published an 
account of it, coinciding strictly with 
that sent by Mr. Pratt to Washington. 
That Commodore Dewey had author- 
ity to act in this matter is established 
by the published state documents., 
which show that he had instructions to 
use his discretion. How he received 
Aguinaldo appears from his official 
despatch to the Secretary of the Navy, 
June 27, 1898: 'T have given him to 
understand that I consider insurgents 
as friends, being opposed to a com- 
mon enemy. He has gone to attend 
a meeting of insurgent leaders for the 
purpose of forming a civil govern- 
ment." Here follows Dewey's well- 
known tribute to the political capacity 
of the Filipinos, greater in his judg- 
ment than that of the Cubans. The 
despatch proceeds entirely on the as- 
sumption that the Filipinos are to be 
entrusted with their own government, 
which must have been his assumption 
in dealing with Aguinaldo. 

But it is unnecessary to quote mes- 
sages and letters and interviews. The 
language of the fact is all the language 
necessary. Aguinaldo went to Manila 
and organized an army to cooperate 
with us on the strength of some ex- 
plicit arrangement with Commodore 
Dewey and Consul Pratt — at a time 
when such a policy as the present one 
toward the Philippines had never been 
mentioned by our government, and 
the only policy apparent to us was 
that declared by Congress toward 
Cuba. Is it reasonable to suppose 
that the promised arrangement was 
that which, when declared in Janu- 
ary. Aguinaldo and his people in- 



stantly denounce and take arms 
against? It is not reasonable. 

Consul Wildman of Hong Kong, 
upon Aguinaldo's return to Manila 
for "general cooperation" with Ad- 
miral Dewey, "under the promise of 
independence," supplied him with sev- 
eral cargoes of arms and ammuni- 
tion. We presume nobody questions 
this. Consul Williams of Manila re- 
ported, June 16, 1898, that the insur- 
gent forces under Aguinaldo had been 
"most active and almost uniformly 
successful in their many encounters" 
with the Spanish ; that since his return 
"his forces had captured nearly 5,000 
prisoners, 4,000 of whom were Span- 
iards, and all of whom had rifles when 
taken. The insurgents have defeated 
the Spaniards at all points except at 
fort near Matate, and hold not only 
North Luzon to the suburbs of Ma- 
nila, but Batanyes Province also and 
the bay coast entire, save the city of 
Manila." We presume nobody ques- 
tions this. Hon. John Barrett does 
not question it. He is on record last 
January to the effect that Aguinaldo 
had "organized an army out of noth- 
ing," and had "captured all Spanish 
garrisons on the island of Luzon out- 
side of Manila, so that when the Amer- 
icans were ready to proceed against 
the city they were not delayed and 
troubled by a country campaign." 
"You must understand," wrote Agui- 
naldo to General Merritt, August 2~, 
"that without the blockade maintained 
by my forces you would have obtained 
possession of the ruins of the city, but 
never the surrender of the Spanish 
forces, who would have been able to 
retire to the interior towns." General 
Merritt did not question this. We pre- 
sume nobody questions it. 

This brief statement of facts is true, 
or it is not true. If it is true, then 
had Aguinaldo and his "savages" kept 
faith with us in their "general coop- 
eration" with us against the Spanish 
forces, "under the promise of inde- 
pendence"? Did we keep faith with 
them when, the moment that the 
Spanish power had by their active and 



20 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



successful cooperation been crushed, 
our general and admiral, under ex- 
press instructions from Washington, 
refused to "recognize" them, and this 
proclamation by President William 
McKinley was promulgated in the 
Philippines, January 5, 1899: "The 
military government heretofore main- 
tained by the United States in the city, 
harbor and bay of Manila is to be ex- 
tended with all possible dispatch to 
the whole of the ceded territory"? 
The date of this first gun in the pres- 
ent war with the Philippines was, it 
will be noted, a month before the rati- 
fication by the Senate of the treaty by 
which Spain relinquished her sover- 
eignty. 

Here begins the impressive story of 
Rev. Clay MacCauley of Japan. Mr. 
MacCauley was in Manila when Gen- 
eral Otis issued, in the President's 
name, "the fateful proclamation of 
January 4." His straightforward ac- 
count, carrying in every line the stamp 
of simple truth, of the incredulity, 
amazement, and then dismay and 
wrath, with which the Filipinos saw 
our friendship suddenly change to 
hostility, saw themselves ignored, ex- 
cluded and ordered to "fall back" and 
to "fall back" again ; of the bitter sense 
which he found among almost all our 
officers of the failure at Washington to 
appreciate the Filipinos at their worth 
and of the great wrong which was be- 
ing done ; of the facts which cumulate 
so inexorably to show that the admin- 
istration at this point, waiving all care 
for pacification, had elected a policy 
of conquest and subjugation and did 
not seek to avoid collision, — this ac- 
count will pass into history. The cen- 
tral point of interest in the story will 
remain the interviews which show that 
General Otis accepted this mistaken 
and cruel policy with heavy-hearted 
resignation, and Admiral Dewey re- 
sented it with hot indignation. "I was 
ordered to this post from San Fran- 
cisco," General Otis said. "I did not 
believe in the annexation of these is- 
lands when I came here, nor do I be- 
lieve in their annexation now." 



"Rather than make a war of conquest 
of this people," said Admiral Dewey, 
"I would up anchor and sail out of the 
harbor." Admiral Dewey is the most 
popular man in America to-day. 
Every American loves and admires 
him for his courage, his daring, his 
keenness, his thoroughness, his pru- 
dence, his diplomacy, his modesty, his 
simplicity, his common sense, his 
power to hold his tongue. America 
waits to welcome the hero of Manila. 
P>ut history will say, if this story 
stands unimpeached, that when Dewey 
the silent spoke on that January day, 
the American citizen in him leaping 
before the admiral, he did a nobler and 
more memorable deed than that on 
the famous May morning. 

The remarkable reception of this 
letter by the press of the country is 
a refreshing attestation that what men 
want, in this complex situation, is 
simply the truth. It has at once put 
an end to apologies for the Philippine 
policy of the administration in many 
columns where there had been long 
and painful struggle to apologize. 
The Boston Herald, the most conspic- 
uous instance in New England, 
stated the situation justly and con- 
vincingly when it declared that, with 
the writer of this letter, it was 

"fully persuaded that our power and glory- 
could have achieved all substantial tri- 
umph and all real advantages in the East 
by a different course, more in harmony 
with our national principles and life, and 
not in violation of the precepts of Chris- 
tianity and the dictates of humanity. The 
facts which he presents regarding the sit- 
uation in January last establish the conten- 
tion of the Herald, that the responsibility 
for the war rests on the administration and 
not on the opponents of the Paris treaty. 
It was the administration which ungrate- 
fully cast off the allies it had courted, by 
iwhose aid it had captured Manila and 
its Spanish garrison. The United States 
might have continued the master of the 
Philippines, the respected and trusted 
protector of their people, stronger, we be- 
lieve, in that quarter of the world than it 
can ever make itself by alienating the 
sympathy of those teeming populations, 
without provoking this dreadful war and 
its century-long train of rankling disap- 
pointment and hate. It becomes more and 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



more evident that, after the overthrow of 
Spanish dominion, we might by judicious 
courses have securely won what we may 
never securely conquer. Expansion with- 
out subjugating war, and without infidel- 
ity to our great charter of liberty, would 
have been an achievement of unparalleled 
glory and honor. The President, sur- 
rounded by impatient speculators and 
shallow jingoes, missed his grandest op- 
portunity." 

When things have come to the pass 
described, the question as to the de- 
tails of the first skirmish is a trivial 
question ; the story of the Boston 
Massacre well teaches us that. War 
is inevitable. The real first gun was 
the Presidents proclamation of Janu- 
ary 4, asserting "sovereignty" over a 
people who expected fraternity, and 
had a right to expect it. There was 
then no disorder in the island. The 
talk about our staying in the island 
to ''prevent anarchy" is insolence and 
nonsense, as every talker knows. Our 
own consul at Hong Kong, who 
from the beginning understood the 
whole situation so well, and who a 
year ago wished to be put "on record 
as stating that the insurgent govern- 
ment of the Philippine Islands cannot 
be dealt with as though they were 
American Indians," also put himself 
on record as believing that the "spirit 
with which they fought the Spaniards" 
was sufficient guarantee that the Phil- 
ippine people, if we withdrew, would 
be quite able to defend themselves 
against any other power seeking to 
master them. Our own Wilcox and 
Sargent, the two young American of- 
ficers who last autumn, in behalf of 
Admiral Dewey, made a journey 
through the island of Luzon, and 
whose report issued from Washington 
in January was pronounced the "clear- 
est and most accurate picture of con- 
ditions as they exist in the interior," 
show us conclusively that there is no 
anarchy there to-day except that 
which we ourselves have carried. Ser- 
geant Andrea? and Mr. Reeves of our 
own Signal Corps, who made several 
similar journeys, at the same period, 
taking them one hundred and fifty 
miles from Manila, describe the same 



conditions of peace and simple toil 
among the peasantry, of universal hos- 
pitality and kindness, — they travelled 
everywhere unarmed, — of universal 
enthusiasm for their new government, 
of universal trust in us as their libera- 
tors and their friends. 

Every condition favored for making 
these people our friends and partners. 
It is not a debatable question. But it is 
also not a debatable question that our 
government had no care for pacifica- 
tion, but thought only of subjugation. 
The appeal is to facts. The attempt 
of the two Filipino soldiers to cross 
our lines, which led to the altercation 
of February 4 between the pickets, 
was entirely unauthorized and at once 
disclaimed. It is a matter of official 
record that all the higher Filipino of- 
ficers were in conference in their 
headquarters at the time. It is also 
a matter of record that as soon as 
Aguinaldo got news of the conflict he 
sent a messenger begging the Ameri- 
cans to desist, declaring that whatever 
a few of his soldiers had done was 
without authority. This we have 
upon the authority of our own mili- 
tary chief of police at Manila at the 
time, General C. McC. Reeve of Min- 
nesota, who wrote: 

"On Sunday, February 5, the day after 
the fighting began, General Torres of the 
insurgents came through the lines under a 
flag of truce and had a personal interview 
with General Otis, in which, speaking for 
Aguinaldo, he declared that the fighting 
had been begun accidentally, and was not 
authorized by Aguinaldo; that Aguinaldo 
wished to have it stopped, and that to 
bring about a conclusion of hostilities he 
proposed the establishment of a neutral 
zone between the two armies, of any width 
that would be agreeable to General Otis, 
so that during peace negotiations there 
might be no further danger of conflicts 
between the two armies. To these repre- 
sentations of General Torres, General Otis 
replied that the fighting, having once be- 
gun, must go on to the grim end." 

This situation is recognized in Gen- 
eral Otis's own telegram to Washing- 
ton, February 9: "Aguinaldo now 
applies for a cessation of hostilities 
and conference ; have declined to 
answer." He was instantlv furnished 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



with his answer from Washington ; 
and the grim work began, and has 
gone on, and is going on. Who is 
responsible for it? 

* * 
Abraham Lincoln once said: 

"No man is good enough to govern 
another man without that other's consent. 
When the white man governs himself, that 
is self-government; but when he governs 
himself and also governs another man, 
that is more than self-government — that is 
despotism. Our reliance is in the love of 
liberty which God has planted in us; our 
defence is in the spirit which prizes liber- 
ty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, 
everywhere. Those who deny freedom to 
others deserve it not for themselves, and 
under a just God cannot long retain it." 

No word was ever truer, nor more 
immediately true. No democracy can 
play the emperor and remain democ- 
racy ; the mere temptation to it is evi- 
dence of taint. The moment that it 
exercises an outside oppression, that 
moment oppression asserts preroga- 
tives within. Doubly threatening to 
ourselves is our denial of rights and 
of recognition to the Malays of 
Luzon ; for it will be believed — and 
be believed for it is true — that had it 
been not Luzon but Bermuda, white 
men and not brown, we would have 
shown a different hand. The nation 
has come in 1899 to act upon the 
principle which it took up arms to 
suppress in 1861, that liberty belongs 
of right only to white men, and that 
black and brown men must take what 
white men give. The Civil War was 
a life-and-death struggle between 
"Black men down!" and "All men 
up!" It was, as the thronging spirits 
over Gettysburg and Vicksburg and 
the Wilderness are still solemnly 
chanting, whether or not we listen, "to 
settle once for all that men are men." 
The logic of events was making this 
the common gospel of the nation. 
The logic of Luzon has brought back 
to new life the warring philosophies of 
1861. Not in these thirty years — is 
this not clear to all — has there been in 
the South such denial of the black 



man's rights as in these months since 
the nation has denied the brown 
man's rights; there has in the thirty 
years been no such assertion of the 
doctrines which 1861 called treason 
and which in those terrible four years 
shook the very pillars of the state. 
Never has the spirit of the "lost 
cause" been so rampant in the Con- 
federate reunions. Only a fortnight 
before General Wheeler, on Memorial 
Day, came to Charles Sumner's Bos- 
ton to glorify war as the true gran- 
deur of nations, he declared in the 
meeting of the Confederate veterans 
that "the South did not surrender one 
iota of its belief in the truth and jus- 
tice of its cause." No less a man than 
Dr. Curry, the dispenser in the South 
of the great Peabody fund for the edu- 
cation of the freedmen, followed with 
a vigorous plea for the more ex- 
press assertion of the constitutional 
right of secession. But most signifi- 
cant were the general resolutions, 
giving thanks that the nation by its 
attitude in the Philippines had come 
to the position of the South in the 
Civil War, that we were done hearing 
the generalities of the Declaration of 
Independence, and that hereafter, 
when New England and the North 
come to the South to discuss ques- 
tions of race, it will be with the 
accents not of rebuke but of inquiry. 
No one surely will ever suspect us 
of "waving the bloody shirt" ; our 
friendship for the South, our feelings 
upon suffrage, upon education, upon 
the white man and the black, are we 
think well enough known. But the 
time has not yet come when it is safe 
for any of us to believe that the Civil 
War was about nothing, or that its 
issue was the triumph of the wrong. 
The time has not yet come for New 
England to be silent when these doc- 
trines are preached and when events 
and public policies make them natural 
and popular. The cause which Grant 
laid low at Appomattox and in the 
struggle with which Lincoln lived and 
died is not, in our judgment, the cause 
whose badge the President of the na- 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



23 



tion should yet wear upon his breast. 
But if it is to be so worn, then it is 
fitting that it should be in that year 
when the nation views the brown man 
as the Carolina and Virginia of 1861 
viewed the black man. 



We refer to this sudden renaissance 
of secession sentiment and race hatred 
in the South only as illustrative and 
symptomatic, the quick and natural 
home fruitage of false doctrine applied 
in the antipodes, the warning to pa- 
triots in South and North alike of the 
crop inexorably sure in the whole 
domain if the seed is sowed in any 
corner. Mr. Fiske has surveyed the 
cause of Rome's decay for us in vain 
if he has not shown us that that which 
taints % the blood at the extremities 
sooner or later taints it at the heart. 
If there be such a thing as treason 
still, then treason to this republic is 
still what it was in 1861, the Protean 
devil then donning the mask of 
State Rights, the denial of the 
equal rights of men ; it is not in 
the circulation, if afl over the Pacific 
seas, of pamphlets upon "Criminal 
Aggression" and "The Hell of War," 
pamphlets with no word in them 
which was not elemental truth to 
every enlightened American from 
Benjamin Franklin to Charles Sum- 
ner. We laugh at the feeble hys- 
teria of a cabinet frightened by such 
tracts ; we say with the western jour- 
nalist that the theatrical proceedings 
against Mr. Atkinson remind us of 
"government in comic opera" ; we 
think how ridiculous poor George the 
Third and Lord North would have 
appeared even to the England of a 
century ago trying to keep Chatham's 
speeches from getting to Hutchinson 
and Sam Adams. Yet after all such 
things are not chiefly farcical. These 
cheap and easy resorts to petty des- 
potism — the Napoleonic concealment 
from the people of the facts in the 
Philippines is another illustration — 
are the debasing effects of the sud- 
den militarv habit, even upon the 



best of men ; they are wholesome re- 
minders of what militarism means, 
when fully grown ; reminders too that 
liberty and law are not safe in any na- 
tion for a moment when men grow 
careless about the proper forms and 
methods of liberty and law. 

We say that the attitude which our 
government has taken is a deadly 
blow at the New South. Dr. Noble 
observed with sagacity, in his sermon 
last autumn before the American 
Missionary Association, that the 
times when the white men of the 
North and South have "drawn to- 
gether" have too often been bad times 
for the black man ; and the truth in 
the remark is one which commands 
us, in considering every such "har- 
mony," to determine well how far it 
is indeed a mutual harmony with 
those fundamental principles of our 
democracy which condemn respect of 
persons, black or white, and how far 
a harmony between colonels at din- 
ner-tables, where recognition of "un- 
pleasantnesses" is bad form. It is 
true that our war for the liberation of 
Cuba cfid help to consolidate the 
country, for men from the North and 
the South stood shoulder to shoulder 
in the ranks, under the old flag, sing- 
ing with one voice the song of free- 
dom. But the war for the subjuga- 
tion of the Philippines has set back 
for a decade the interest of every ef- 
fort in the South which had hope in 
it and relish of salvation ; it has set the 
"lost cause" in the saddle in the South 
once more for just so long as the gov- 
ernment keeps the nation upon the 
present platform. 

* 

* * 

But it is not only a blow to liberty 
and progress in the South ; it is a 
menace to the whole cause of indus- 
trial development in the country, a 
blow to every American workin^man. 
The sudden abnormal growth of mili- 
tarism in the country must not be dis- 
sociated for a moment from the .gen- 
eral growth of mammonism and plu- 
tocracy. It is plutocracy's surest 



24 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



symptom and, if it is not immediately 
checked, will rapidly become its most 
fertile soil and most fatal agency. 
We are seeing in the Philippines and 
in our own politics in connection with 
the war in the Philippines simply an- 
other campaign in the great industrial 
struggle in which the Civil War was 
but one campaign. We are seeing 
militarism rapidly saddled upon the 
nation, at enormous cost and to no 
good purpose, at the precise juncture 
in our industrial history when the 
plain people — who are about all the 
people there are — have special reason 
to be jealous of militarism. It is with 
true instinct that the workingmen of 
America have unanimously, so far as 
is known to us, denounced the present 
war ; as it is with true instinct that the 
workingmen of every land are becom- 
ing above others international men, 
hating war and all that has to do with 
it, and loving the ways of reason and 
of peace. Let the voice of the plain 
people of America be lifted up to-day 
as it was never lifted up before, in 
their own interest and in the interest 
of mankind. Let the people register 
the high decree that this republic, in 
the hopeful morning of the new indus- 
trial era, shall not become a military 
nation; that not another battery or 
battalion shall be added to its army; 
nor to its navy — too large already for 
any possible righteous need — another 
gunboat or another gun. Let no eye 
fail to see in the Pacific simply a bat- 
tle in the long war of Men with 
Money ; let no ear fail to hear the 
thunder of the gods against the Amer- 
ican freeman consenting to this wrong 
against his poorer brother: Inasmuch 
as ye do it unto the least of these 
your brethren, ye do it to yourselves! 



A poorer, younger brother he is. 
He is not the man who stood at Mars- 
ton Moor or Bunker Hill ; his Agui- 
naldo is not Washington or Cromwell. 
The mud from which he pushes his 
way up still clings to him ; the ape and 
tiger are stronger in him than in some 



of us. But he is a man, he loves liber- 
ty, he will die for his country. How 
earnest and strong he is to fight forher 
is told by the long line of coffins, the 
long list of certificates of coffins, com- 
ing day by day to California and Ore- 
gon, to Kansas and Nebraska. Dr. 
McQuestion comes home with his ter- 
rible story of suffering and death, his 
high estimate of the determination 
and strength, so foolishly underesti- 
mated by our government, of the 
Philippine people, his certainty that 
only a hundred thousand men can 
overcome them. General King speaks 
with his strong emphasis. Mr. 
Knapp's impressive letter comes with 
its rebukes and warnings. Com- 
mander Ford declares that "they are 
stronger, more determined and more 
skilled in the art of war than when the 
fighting started ; they certainly *do not 
think theirs a hopeless fight, nor does 
any one else who knows anything 
about it." It will cost a billion dol- 
lars, says Captain Wilde of the "Bos- 
ton," to carry out to a successful is- 
sue our present policy. And now 
comes the "round* robin" of the news- 
paper correspondents at Manila, pro- 
testing against the censorship which 
keeps our public ignorant of the real 
strength and character of the Philip- 
pine army, of the extent of the losses 
and hardships and disaffection of our 
men, and the general gravity of the 
situation. What are the limits to the 
right to sacrifice these splendid men 
of ours? How many shall we let fall 
before deciding whether the cause is 
one in which it is right to let any fall? 
For surely more splendid fellows, 
braver, more patient, more heroic fel- 
lows, never went out to battle. Their 
fearlessness and competence for every 
trying task are the witness that the 
sufficient school for every neces- 
sary war is the great school of peace. 
All war is hell ; but the facts will show 
that no charges of uncommon hellish- 
ness on the part of these soldiers 
of ours will stand. They demand now 
our consideration. It is cruelty on our 
part if one more dies in vain. 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



If the subjugation of these people 
and the crushing of their aspirations 
for liberty and independence are forthe 
real good of America — not syndicatic 
America, but democratic America — 
and of the world, then let the work go 
on ; let the hundred thousand men be 
made ready for the autumn battles 
and death ; let no line of coffins move 
us. But if the crushing of such aspira- 
tions is not good work for a repub- 
lic ; if the word which comes to us 
from the gallant Funston at Manila — 
"Big syndicates and capitalists will be 
greatly benefited by the retention of 
these islands, but outside a few excep- 
tional cases I can see no advantage 
in their possession by the United 
States." — be a well grounded word; 
if our soldiers are dying to no pur- 
pose — then let the coffins speak to 
us. Yet let it not be the coffin's voice 
which turns the republic back from 
wrong,— not the cost of wrong, the 
piling millions of debt, the hundred 
thousand men, — not the coffin, but 
the conscience, the voice of her own 
soul within her, coming to itself. 

To the nation's aroused conscience, 
complex questions will become simple 
and rough places plain. She will not 
pause to discuss whether we drifted 
into tyranny or strode into it: stop 
tyranny now. She will not stay to 
damn or to vindicate the reputation or 
intentions of this or that man in high 
place: her concern is the public weal, 
and to stop wrong, and stop it now. 
There shall be no autumn campaign 
— that is the vow which the roused 
conscience of the nation is rolling up ; 
there shall be no new harvest of 
wrong, but a harvest time of sanity 
and right. Democracy shall return 
to the "service of democracy ; and the 
menace of mammon and the sword be 
checked — and be checked now. 

It cannot be done? It is only the 
hucksters and the pagan clerics who 
say that — the clerics who, in this great 
crisis, have in such appalling propor- 
tions abdicated their function and ig- 
nominiously failed to lead the con- 
science of the people or to give it 



voice. The manly fighters say it can 
be done, and name the way, the sim- 
ple Christian way. "A little less gun- 
powder and a little more diplomacy!" 
— that is Funston's word. "Give them 
some assurance and actual demonstra- 
tion of our good will and friendship 
for them and thought of their welfare. 
Win them into our confidence. It can 
be done." "Strange as it may seem," 
says this fearless soldier, while the 
pulpits preach powder, "I am almost 
a 'peace at any price' man. When life 
and property can be saved, it is almost 
crime not to follow that rule, whatever 
circumstances be arguing against it." 
It is the great question of national 
character. When we entered upon 
war with Spain, we solemnly declared 
before the nations of the world that it 
was with no thought of conquest, and 
that, when Cuba was once freed from 
Spain, she should elect her own fu- 
ture. It is the question of whether we 
will respect that pledge — not because 
it was a pledge, although that were 
duty, but because it is right. "Forci- 
ble annexation," our President de- 
clared, — and we all said Amen, — 
"cannot be thought of. That by our 
code of morality would be criminal 
aggression." It is the question 
whether crime to us is less criminal in 
actual operation than in vague pros- 
pect. Shall the present tyranny, when 
once clearly understood by the people, 
go to history with the stamp of their 
approval or of their disapproval? The 
fate of American democracy itself 
hangs on that question. Shall the 
great temple of our honor and our 
hope, reared by the labors and devo- 
tion of the long generations, be vio- 
lated by this hoary innovation, be 
shaken by the recklessness of shallow 
jingoism and remorseless greed? 



When General Wheeler, in 1861, 
felt that his country was wrong, he 
took up arms against her, — and still 
declares his cause was true and just. 
His text in Boston on Memorial Day 
was, "My country, right or wrong!" 



26 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



He was a nobler figure far in 1861 
than as the preacher of this devil's 
doctrine. There is no doctrine which 
is poisoning the blood of this republic 
to-day like this. There is no man 
so hopeless as he who knows nothing 
higher than his country and who feels 
it his duty to stand by his country 
in any cause to which she is com- 
mitted, whether it be right or wrong. 
This republic is full to-day of this 
paralyzing fatalism, full of men who 
believe the country is in error, even in 
sin, but who believe it must still be 
kept on its course, because the course 
has been decreed. It is the ultimate 
political scepticism; but it speaks in 
the home and on the street, with the 
preacher's tongue and the editor's 
pen. It speaks from the chair where 
George William Curtis used to sit, in 
this number of Harper's Weekly which 
lately came to our table. There is no 
journal better known through all the 
land, and so it serves our purpose 
well. This "journal of civilization" 
felt at the outset that our course in 
the Philippines was uncivilized and 
wrong, but it has supported the ad- 
ministration. It sent out an intelli- 
gent and able man, Mr. Bass, as its 
special correspondent at Manila, a 
sturdy imperialist and so to be trusted 
to say the right things. But Mr. Bass 
has become converted by what he has 
seen, and is suddenly playing the part 
of Balaam the son of Peor to Balak 
the son of Zippor. He "has an- 
nounced that he has learned to be an 
ardent anti-expansionist," the editor 
savs; and the editor himself writes 
this extraordinary article upon "The 
Country and Its War." He thinks 
that "a great mistake has been made," 
that thinking people are more clearly 
recognizing that we can stay in the 
Philippines only by maintaining "a 
most autocratic rule— a rule directly 
hostile to the genius of our institu- 
tions." "We should have recognized 
at once," he declares, "the long strug- 
gle which these people had made for 
independence, and we should have as- 
sured them in advance that we had 



no intention of defeating their hopes 
of freedom by taking up the govern- 
ment which we had forced Spain to 
lay down." The government instead 
saw fit to "turn its back upon Ameri- 
can traditions and American princi- 
ples and professions." The writer an- 
nounces himself "a firm believer in 
the folly of imperialism and the injus- 
tice of governing a people against 
their wills." All this, and then — the 
paralyzing fatalism. We have made a 
great mistake, we are wronging the 
people of the Philippines, we are false 
to ourselves, we have turned our 
backs upon American principles ; but 
we must stand by the administration 
in fighting it through. "The country 
is at war. When that is said,'.' — this 
is the monstrous conclusion, — "the 
duty of every citizen is at once evi- 
dent. He must support the govern- 
ment, whether he differed from it or 
not as to the propriety of the conduct 
which brought on the war. It is im- 
moral to do otherwise." 

There are men in this country who 
believe that our course in the Philip- 
pines is thoroughly right ; that, going 
there by accident or sudden military 
need, we found an unforeseen oppor- 
tunity to destroy Spanish rule, and it 
was a good thing to do it; that the 
Aguinaldo government is not com- 
petent to govern well, and so it is a 
good thing to destroy that and subject 
the people to ourselves, not simply in 
the interests of our industry and trade, 
but in the interests of general peace 
and progress. The leaps in the logic 
of this position, the astigmatism of its 
look at facts, its sense of what is great 
and what is small, of what progress 
is and of what right and wrong are, 
are to us appalling; but we can re- 
spect the position ; we do at least re- 
spect a hundred noble men who hold 
it. They seem to us faithful blind 
men. The position of Colonel Roose- 
velt seems to some of us rude, barbar- 
ous and un-American ; but who of us 
does not believe in his red blood and 
in his truth, and that the things we do 
not like can be safelv left to the cor- 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



27 



rection of the next few years? The 
interval between such a" man and the 
Machiavelians and Mephistophelians 
is immense. 

But the position of this "journal of 
civilization," the position of the multi- 
plying thousands of men in the re- 
public for whom this journal speaks 
with a boldness and brutality only one 
degree greater than what is common, 
is the position of faithless men who 
see. It is faithlessness to civiliza- 
tion, faithlessness to humanity, faith- 
lessness to our democracy itself, — 
to that higher law through love of 
which and fear of which and obedi- 
ence to which alone can this democ- 
racy or any state continue to stand at 
all." It is a state of mind, says Rus- 
kin, greatly to be dreaded, not to 
know the devil when you see him. 
More dreadful is the state of the mind 
whose "immorality" is obedience to 
the higher law. 

Immoral to turn back from recog- 
nized error and undo confessed wrong 
— immoral to do right! It is expedi- 
ent, it is hard necessity, it is some- 
times solemn duty, when in some 
dreadful strait the very life of the state 
is at stake, for the citizen to be silent 
when he would else protest, because 
diversion to a little wrong might 
weaken a great right. But such occa- 
sions are rare indeed in history'; it is 
impious even to remember them in 
the vicious escapades of nations revel- 
ling in insolent power. Immoral not 
to "support the government" in wrong 
and folly! Say it to Chatham and to 
Burke, to the great company of the 
English immortals who rejoiced in 
London at the news from Bunker Hill 
and Saratoga! Say it to Victor Hugo 
when to "support the government" 
meant to support Napoleon the Little 
in subjugating Mexico! Say it to 
Charles Sumner when the govern- 
ment meant the Quays and Platts and 
Hannas of James K. Polk! 

Support the government! We, the 
people, are the government. "The 
People is the sovereign of this coun- 
trv," — how often we need to remember 



that great word of Edward Everett 
Hale's ; — "the People is sovereign 
here, the People is the fountain of 
honor here; the President is the ser- 
vant of the People." This is not a 
government by presidents; it is a 
government by the people, a govern- 
ment by public opinion; and to the 
making of that government wise and 
righteous it is the duty of every citi- 
zen to contribute. Were our admin- 
istration, like the English ministry, 
subject each day to the popular ma- 
jority, it could not abide an appeal to 
the country on the present policy. As 
it is, let not the people wait for this 
to become a party issue, but let their 
voice be heard. Men say with 
a self-suppression which would be 
pathetic were it not so pusillanimous, 
that their "government" has "facts" 
which they have not, and therefore 
must not be meddled with. The Presi- 
dent has no knowledge of important 
facts which every citizen may not 
have. As the chief servant of the peo- 
ple, he has no right to important 
knowledge which he does not share 
with them ; and in the present crisis 
he has frankly told us that he has not 
any. In the great town meeting oi 
democracy the responsibility comes 
home to every man alike, to the se- 
lectman and the other; and no man 
can atone for what he confesses to be 
sin and shame by any maudlin talk 
about "supporting the government." 

Consistency is truly the hobgoblin 
of little minds ; and its sway is 
stronger over nations than over indi- 
vidual men. It is a fearful proverb, 
that corporations have no souls, — 
though every member of the corpora- 
tion be a deacon. Men are more willing 
to do wrong, and less willing to repent, 
in their corporate capacity than by 
themselves. Men have tolearn that the 
ethics of the citizen, the ethics of the 
state, is simply the ethics of the gen- 
tleman — to confess mistake or wrong, 
and to undo it, the moment that he 
finds it out. Gladstone knows but 
one law for Hawarden and for Down- 
ing Street. Noblesse oblige — that is 



28 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



the doctrine and the test alike of the 
gentlemanly nation and the gentle- 
manly man ; and the "white man's 
burden," if his whiteness is whiteness 
of soul and not simply of skin, is to 
be quicker to undo a wrong to an 
inferior than to an equal. 



Having"forced a peace"by fighting 
to the bitter end in consistency with 
the policy upon which we have en- 
tered, our duty then — such is the last 
word of the article of the "journal of 
civilization" — is, "possessing some 
evidence of the terrible cost of this 
policy, to discuss the future not only 
in the light of our recent experience, 
but in the calm contemplation of our 
happy past, which is mainly, if not 
wholly, due to our adherence to the 
wise, the ever-wise, counsels of the 
great and prophetic Washington." 

History is kind to us in making this 
year, so big with fate to the country, 
the centennial of the death of the 
father of the country. We stand 
at the point just a century after 
Washington. Let us not keep the 
feast in desecration of his mem- 
ory; let us keep it by the manly ceas- 
ing from wrongdoing and the hum- 
ble, proud return to his approving 
smile ; let us keep it by listening with 
new anxiety and reverence to his 
word. Could the voice of Washing- 
ton reach us to-day, it would not 
speak to us with the accent of any 
selfish, smug parochialism, but with 
the accent of the citizen of the world. 
No man in his great day saw so far 
west as he; to-day his vision would 
sweep round the globe. He was the 
great expander of the republic; he 
would be the great expander of the 
republic's true influence among men. 
He would tell the republic that it was 
no longer boy, but man, and that it 
must now quit itself like a man. He 
would remind us that while he was 
yet with us he foresaw the time 
"when, our institutions being firmly 
consolidated and working with com- 
plete success, we might safely and 



perhaps beneficially take part in the 
consultations held by foreign states 
for the advantage of the nations ;" 
and he would tell us that a hundred 
"entanglements" are expedient and 
imperative for us to-day which were 
not to be considered a century ago. 
But he would tell us also that there 
are truths which do not change with 
the centuries and with which the na- 
tion that measures its power on a 
continental scale may no more trifle 
with impunity than the new man- 
child. 

"There exists in the economy and 
course of nature," he would say, "an indis- 
soluble union between duty and advan- 
tage, between the genuine maxims of an 
honest and magnanimous policy and the 
solid rewards of public prosperity. The 
propitious smiles of Heaven can never be 
expected on a nation that disregards the 
eternal rules of order and right. Mo- 
rality is a necessary spring of popular gov- 
ernment. Who can look with indiffer- 
ence upon attempts to shake the founda- 
tion of the fabric? It will be worthy of a 
free, enlightened and great nation to give 
to mankind the magnanimous and too 
novel example of a people always guided 
by an exalted justice and benevolence. 
The experiment, at least, is recommended 
by every sentiment which ennobles human 
nature." 



The # year is a century after the 
death of Washington ; it is three cen- 
turies after the birth of Oliver Crom- 
well. It is a didactic coincidence. 
Washington completed what Crom- 
well began. The American Revolu- 
tion was the echo of the struggle for 
the English Commonwealth. The 
conflict between the Boston town 
meetings and King George was that 
same old conflict between the Com- 
mons and King Charles. It was 
right that it should centre in the 
Puritan city. Puritanism was New 
England's corner stone. Bradford 
and Winthrop and Cotton and 
Hooker and Roger Williams, the men 
who planted New England, were 
doing one work with Cromwell and 
Hampden and Eliot and Pym and 
Milton and Vane, the men who es- 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



29 



tablished the Commonwealth. You 
cannot tell whether their Puritanism 
was most religion or most politics. 
Church and State, to the Puritan, were 
alike instruments whereby to advance 
on earth the kingdom of God. What- 
ever other voices are silent, or what- 
ever other voices say, let the voice of 
Puritan New England ever be heard 
declaring that that is forever the 
duty of the State ; and let New Eng- 
land and America be devoutly thank- 
ful that this centennial of the greatest 
of the Puritans comes in this year of 
temptation, to command attention 
with new power to Puritanism's ever- 
lasting truth. 



The year is that when, in the hos- 
pitable land from which the Pilgrims 
sailed to lay the corner stone of this 
nation, the representatives of all civil- 
ized nations are gathered about the 
sacredest round-table of history, 
called by a higher and a holier call 
than any which ever came to Galahad 
or Arthur. It is the year which 
strikes the first stroke of the hour of 
Universal Peace, the year for which 
prophets have yearned and of which 
poets have sung, when the nations of 
the world first echo the strain of the 
Christmas angels of God. Is democ- 
racy to choose this year of years to 
put on the old armor which even 
sickened despotism seeks to cast 
away? Is this Great Republic, where- 
to waiting, praying Europe has 
looked for leadership, to choose this 
year to turn her face from the future 
back toward the blood-rusted past 
and make it the Year One of her era 
of armies and navies, conquest and 
subjugation, partitions of Poland and 
Opium wars? Tragical was the irony 
by which the hour of the Peace 
Congress found her hands blood- 
stained, and which made the song of 
her poet an "Ichabod." * 

Why is she late at the Tryst of the Peace- 
Makers? 
Where is the youngest and fairest of all, 

*"At the Peace Congress," by William C Gannett. 



Last-born of Liberty, darling of Destiny, 
Star of the stricken and hope of the 
thrall? 

Russia has come from her plains and her 
river-gates; 
England has come from her isles of the 
sea; 
Italy hastens a-leap on the hill-tops; 
Germany, France — they forget and 
agree. 

Why lags America? Still at her chivalry, 
Saving some little one pressed by the 
foe? 
Spending her treasure and sharing her 
privilege, 
Loosing a captive from hunger and 
woe? 



Ah, she comes radiant! Ah, she comes 
beautiful ! 
Welcome and praise for her! Hail to 
her deed! 
Place for the Selfless One! Room for the 
Succorer — 
"Rights of the People" banner and 

creed! 

Red is her robe — she is Land of the After- 
glow. 
Red-lit her c^cek — it is heart-glow her 
own. 
Red on her hands? It is blood? Does 
America 
Mock the White Muster, red-handed 
alone? 

All of the rest of them doffing war's gar- 
niture, 
Stainless and swordless, one-minded for 
peace — 
She alone sitting unwashed of her battle- 
smoke, 
Streaked with the death-gush of victims' 
release? 



Crownless she sits there, unstarred of her 
radiance. 
Blood on her hands, the old greed in 
her heart: 
Blood that young patriots lavished for 
liberty, 
Greed of the conqueror, wile of the 
mart. 

This, for the snlendor with which she 
faced Godward! 
This, for the vision that heavened her 
eyes ! 
Body's expansion for soul-growth impe- 
rial — 
Oh. the mad barter of 'sin and surprise! 



30 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



How can she sing of it, "Sweet Land of 
Liberty," 
She with her banner-words changed into 
ban? 
Hushed be that song till the silence re- 
teaches her 
Faith that makes faithful to God and to 
Man! 



Have not the Fathers pledged her to 
righteousness? 
Have not the Sons once redeemed from 
eclipse? 
Vision shall star once again the sweet 
brows of her, 
Song be reborn on the beautiful lips! 

Yes, reborn. The faces of Whittier 
and Lowell and Emerson are turned 
to the wall to-day, to remind us 
solemnly how "false is the war no poet 
sings" and that no line of theirs can 
be made to keep step with the situa- 
tion. But to-morrow — who dare 
doubt it — her step shall be set once 
again to song; to-morrow — who dare 
doubt it — the nightmare shall end and 



she shall come to herself. Things 
present and things past shall not per- 
suade us that the heart of the people 
is not sound and that the nation shall 
not rise triumphant over every pas- 
sion and temptation of the hour, dis- 
ciplined by the hour's heart-search- 
ings to better fitness for the imperial 
task to which God has called her in 
the family of nations. Imperial shall 
sh,e rise? Yes, imperial; but an "im- 
perial Salem, crowned with light." 
She shall go out into all the world, 
with new dreams, larger ambitions 
and bolder venture, conquering and to 
conquer. But she shall not go with 
lust or greed or cruelty or oppression 
in her heart. She shall go the herald 
still of liberty, proclaiming liberty to 
all the earth. She shall found an em- 
pire that shall be a universal common- 
wealth, an empire based not upon the 
fears, but upon the aspirations and the 
hopes of men. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




t llll Ill 
0013 




744 827 



